Description
Key Learnings
- Learn about how to craft a brand that resonates on a global scale.
- Learn how to maximize reach and engagement across diverse platforms, and learn about audience engagement technique.
- Discover monetization strategies that ensure sustainable revenue, and learn about scaling across cultures.
Speaker
- FMFERNANDO MACEDOFernando Macedo is a Brazilian producer, director, and screenwriter. While at the helm of his 19-year company (SPIRIT Animation Studios), Macedo developed several concepts for global animated series and features, most notably KARL™ Franchise (DISNEY xd, Amazon Prime) with 3 ongoing Seasons with over 1 billion views, and TINY FURRIES™ (produced by Wildbrain Spark UK and Silverlit Toys - Tokyo). Most recently, SPIRIT has been multi-recognized with its Original Limited Series, CELESTE™, winner of an Epic MegaGrants, and ROSIE™, a CGI multi-recognized animated feature currently in pre-production. Macedo was invited to be a juror at the 51st Annie Awards, as well as a speaker at SIGGRAPH Bogotá and Rio2C International Conference. He has also been regularly selected for global pitchings at the American Film Market (AFM), MIFA Campus, Ventana Sur, and Rio2C (three times). Instagram (Personal): www.instagram.com/macedones Instagram (SPIRIT Animation): www.instagram.com/spiritanimation Website (SPIRIT Animation): www.SPIRITANIMATION.com
FERNANDO MACEDO: Hello, everyone. It's great to be here at Autodesk University 2024. I'm going to talk to you about how to unlock the secrets to building a billion-view global franchise. It's been quite a tricky journey with lots of learnings. And I hope it's going to be very good for you.
A bit about myself. I am Fernando Macedo. I am from Brazil with a degree in marketing and advertising. I founded Spirit Animation in 2005. I did a postgraduate program in Canada. It was in Seneca College.
And I wear many hats. I'm a producer, writer, director, showrunner, voice actor, and harmonica player. So that's a bit about my background. And I'm also the creator of the show KARL. So it's a very nice case study. I hope you like it. I've put in here lots of learnings that I'm sure it might help you if you have this in mind.
So about Spirit Animation, that's my studio who produced KARL's franchise. In a nutshell, I founded the company in 2005. We work with advertising and also entertainment with series and features.
Our content, our main content, KARL, has over 1 billion views. We have about 90-plus artists working with us. And we're always present at global pitchings with new contents.
A few of our clients, we work a lot with Walt Disney Company and WildBrain Spark, Smyths Toys China, Epic Grants, Unreal Engine, always trying to do quality work with the challenging market.
A few selected production services we've worked on-- so we've animated Mickey and Minnie. That was very tricky. We worked in some European feature films with animation. We're doing a show with Austria.
And we do from pre-production, story, concept art, to final delivery, so 3D and 2D. Full-scale production. And here's a quick video so you can feel our spirit.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
These feature films, we animated with Autodesk Maya, our main two.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We do also all our rigging with Maya. And we usually use V-Ray for render.
- Open the safe.
- I don't even know the combination.
- Give the signal!
[END PLAYBACK]
FERNANDO MACEDO: So KARL has achieved quite a lot, so how did we get here? Let's dive into that.
So one of the objectives of this talk is to learn how to craft a brand that resonates on a global scale. Hits and misses we had along the way. How to maximize reach and audience engagement. And also talk about monetization. KARL-- Healthy life, happy life.
So this terrible thing you're seeing is the main sketch from KARL that I did on a napkin. Actually, it wasn't from KARL. It was a hero made of fruits. That's it. No other concept attached to it.
And then I thought, maybe I can style this concept of this fruit hero to a supermarket as a mascot. And hopefully-- and hopefully, no. But thankfully, the supermarket turned down my offer. So sometimes bad things happen for a good reason. Because if that supermarket had taken my mascot for himself, I wouldn't have a show, right?
So then I was with that concept of a hero made of fruit, but where to go? So my intuition, I always try to follow my intuition. There was something special about that idea. But what? So then I created the concept based on myself with my conscience while trying to balance my healthy or not eating habits.
So I ask you. What would you choose, the pizza or a salad? The burger, or a fruit? So it's this struggle, that's when I created Karl.
And obesity is one of the main causes of death around the world. The world's obesity levels have skyrocketed due to unhealthy eating habits, high prices of healthy food, and lack of exercise. So it's a serious subject. So how could I help the world with that?
That's when I connected the dots , and I developed the idea of this hero, this group of heroes, healthy heroes that exist inside a boy's mind. So every time the boy decides to-- the kid decides to eat something unhealthy or not, you have this struggle between the healthy and the unhealthy. And that's where the show happens, inside the kid's mind.
So this is the second design from KARL. That's the big pear with the strawberry suit. I like that. And then that came the hero to inspire kids and adults to bring more moderation in their lives. It's important to make it clear that it's not a vegan show or anything. It's just about moderation. You can eat whatever you like with moderation-- balance, right? So that's one concept that I like with Jonny looking at the soda drink, and then behind we can see Karl and the soda bot.
So here's a promo for KARL so you can get to know
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Jonny is a young kid that loves eating lots of delicious, unhealthy food without moderation. Like most of us, he has a healthy conscience, ready to help him resist these unhealthy temptations. Meet Karl, the great hero that lives inside of Jonny's mind. He'll do just about anything to help Jonny resist. Spirit's Animation presents KARL.
[GROANS]
Meet Milky.
Polly.
Boogy Woogy.
- Oh, how cute.
- And many more. Get ready for the most awesome and crazy interstitial entertainment of the known universe. Humor, actions, gags, adventure, emotions, friends. Oops!
[SCREAMS]
Magic. And lots of out-of-the-box moments. And our heroes are not alone. They are supported by a super team of doctors and experts in health and nutrition.
I wonder if Jonny will be able to resist this delicious pizza. I know I wouldn't. More info at karlanimatedseries.com.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
- Ah! Jonny is a--
[END PLAYBACK]
FERNANDO MACEDO: So what are the core points of KARL? Positive learning. So it's important for us to help kids to have better eating habits.
Entertainment. I didn't want to make a boring show. Otherwise, kids wouldn't want to watch. So fun, fun, crazy content is a must on KARL's brand, so it's a fun way to bring awareness to what we're talking here.
No dialogues, so universal comprehension. By having no dialogues, the show was able to travel very, very, very far away and faster than usual because everyone can understand.
And the short format, so two-minute episodes. Well, now we have over 150 episodes. And it's quite tricky to have this format to tell a story with beginning, middle, and end. So you have to be able to feel the moments, to feel the ending. You cannot rush into the story.
And test it sooner than later. So for those out there, this is a DVD. They used to exist in the olden days. We did this animation test which ended up being a short film. We were selected for the Anima Mundi International Festival. But this was basically to feel how the character moves, expresses himself.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Trying to see how cartoony we would go on expressions. How was this character? How would he behave? His personality. So after this, we were more confident on the way we were going. All this was our own investment. We were investing on the idea of trying to see what we had.
[GROWLING]
[END PLAYBACK]
And I always like to "show, don't tell" because we hear a lot of new ideas here at Spirit Animation and studio and people wanting to work with us. And everybody always says that their idea is genius, brilliant. It's new and fresh and incredible.
And what I felt from the market is, OK, so show it to me. So it's not enough to tell. That's why we decided to produce a pilot episode, which took many, many months.
So our own investment, that's something that I really recommend. If you truly believe in your idea, invest and make it. If you end up waiting for some magic funding to come, you might not do it.
And work and rework on it until it's perfect. That's very important because sometimes the script looks good, but when you produce it, it's something wrong, or when you do the storyboard and then-- so always keep improving until you have something that you're happy with. So that's a scene of episode one. That's a soda bot attacking Karl.
So the pilot episode was ready. Awesome. Next step, I have to show this to the broadcasters and try to make this show come true. So I always go to these international conferences. Not every year, of course, but during this 20th year from Spirit Animation, I try to be at most conference possible. It's a lot of small investment, but that's where you make some good connections, networking, and also hear about how the business works and strategies you can follow.
So these are a few of the conferences I really like. Kidscreen in San Diego, Rio2C in Brazil. Annecy, it's amazing. in June. MIPCOM in October, and many more. Pixelatl in Mexico, that's also a good one.
So networking, it's so important because it's all about human relationships. So this is where we met Disney, at Rio2C in Rio de Janeiro. And you have to be ready to pitch your idea fast and furious. So know your elevator pitch because you don't have much time to talk with these people. And if you only send an email, it gets into this mysterious--
So what we did is we talked to them. We had the pilot episode ready. We showed it to them. They liked it, and then we did a follow-up through email when we closed the deal. So that's us on Disney Office. Very cool. KARL goes to Disney.
And then Disney made a request. Should we accept their suggestions or not? So what they said is the kid Jonny should always choose the healthier choice at the end. And hence, the boy wouldn't be chubby because he would be, of course, with healthier choices.
And they also wanted a delivery of 52 episodes in one year. We had never done that before at that time, so challenge accepted. We changed the show's concept because it made sense. So here's Jonny, and here's the new design. He's thinner.
And we started thinking about how to make a viable production pipeline. And also how to get the money because Disney wants to license the show, but the money to produce it, you have to figure out by yourself. So we went to Brazilian incentive funds. The audiovisual law in Brazil provides tax incentives for investments in the audiovisual sector. So basically the company deducts part of their income tax. Instead of giving to the government, they give to production.
And the good thing about this law is that the producer keeps 100% of ownership rights. For example, if Netflix pays for your show, you're probably not going to own your show anymore because they paid for it. So in this funds, it doesn't work like this.
And a note about funding. It can take quite a while for it to fund your project. So to gain time and deliver-- so we could deliver when Disney wanted, we couldn't wait forever for this funding to come in. So we decided to invest ourselves and then reimburse ourselves once we got the funding. It's risky if we don't get the funding and all that. But we invested, we believed, and it all worked out.
Pre-production was very fun. We had to create with 52 cool, unhealthy food monsters of all kinds, you can imagine. Here's a look behind the scenes. Environments-- that's a cookie land. A big sausage villain. The arcade, cotton candy and all that.
And it was interesting because we started receiving the feedbacks, like oh, so cotton candy is not healthy? No. You should be aware of. So we really started to see we're making a difference in the world.
So this is a bit of our challenge, how to produce that. So we basically divide it into batches. And we did all these episodes at the same time. And then we were delivering to Disney in batches. So batch one, batch two, batch three. Very tricky.
Production pipeline tips-- you have to be very organized, and you have to be able to work with across different time zones with your team. Here are some management tools that we like. ShotGrid, Monday, Miro, Discord.
Communication is super important. Weekly feedback or daily feedback. Early flagged surprise-- so if you see something's going to go wrong, address that, fix that as early as possible. And yeah, celebrate every milestone as well.
Turntables help you get a good sense of the props, the characters, the environments. So take a look and see. And so it's always good to do one of those once every prop of yours is ready.
We have in the show-- oops, animation.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
So this is actually an episode called "Karl Versus Ketchup Jack." In 3D animation. That's our spookiest episode. But curious enough, it's the kids' favorite. We also do some episodes in 2D.
[END PLAYBACK]
So
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[LAUGHS]
- Oh!
FERNANDO MACEDO: This is a gaming app we did. Because all this happens in our conscience inside the kid's mind, so we can really go nuts with where we want to do every episode and how this struggle is going to be. This is "Ninja Fries."
[END PLAYBACK]
There is nothing more predictable than the unpredictable. So that's something that our team said. I think it was John. And yep, you got to be ready for those. So have multiple daily backups.
So we had a power shortage that damaged several episodes in the show's 3D assets library. We had to run against time to deliver for Disney on time, and we had to redo it all. We came out stronger with a high-security server, local and cloud-based storage systems. So that happens.
It's a wrap. So we finished up 52 episodes, non-dialogue. Season one completed, ready to air. Awesome. We celebrated. And I have to thank all the sponsors that have supported KARL's franchise along the years. Yeah, amazing. It's really important, these incentives laws and these funds. So Thank you so much.
Edutainment-- so then it was airing on Disney XD, KARL. So cool. Our show was being aired among between Marvel, Star Wars. And we had a global reach-- so from Latam to China. And it's so cool to see your audience reacting to it. We have lots of fans in Vietnam. And yeah.
And here's a cool tip. Tie your wagon to a star. So we always bring KARL's awareness recommendations in partnership with talented doctors, nutritionists. So Dr. Barakat is one of them. He's a very well-known Brazilian known for his healthy lifestyle. He coaches all the celebrities. And he has a very strong digital presence. So it's important, especially if we're talking about food and health, it's important to have this system backing you up.
And how to bring more awareness-- so social media because people don't know, especially kids, why certain things might be bad or not. So our mission is to make clear for kids, warning, moderation. This is not healthy. Be aware of that. So we do a lot of posts in social media.
And we've gotten some nice recognitions. So we were selected as a high global impact entrepreneurship company for the Scale Up Endeavor program, which is a brilliant network of business people. And it was assigned for us, our strategic mentor, Marcos Rosset, which was the former CEO of Walt Disney Company Brazil. So that's a proof when you're doing something with quality and doors open. And that's so nice.
So as I mentioned, KARL goes to China. And then you have some localization challenges. Because on season two, we put some offscreen narrator. So then how do you approve this narration if you don't understand what they're saying and the symbols, the logos, the brands? So localization is a challenge. You should always have a budget for that. It's not cheap. And keep in mind if your show is to expand, localization.
Choose wisely your distributor. So we chose different distributors according to specific regions of the world. You should choose the ones who are strong in their territories. So don't give the show distribution in Asia for someone who's from Brazil and has nothing to do with Asia, for example.
Try to do this. Sometimes you sign the global exclusive distribution. And OK, but that's one thing you should keep in mind. Pick the ones who connect to your content. So yeah, it's important for you to have a distributor who likes your show because they're going to pitch this elsewhere. And they have to have the sparkle in their eyes.
Avoid distributors who have contents similar to yours. Otherwise, which content will they sell? Yours? The other one? And hire entertainment lawyers to read the contracts. It's money well spent. And it's not cheap as well, but it's important. It's amazing how those little letters, the hold-back periods.
For example, when we aired at Disney, we had a one-year hold-back period, which you couldn't put the show elsewhere. And then we had another one for the social for the YouTube. So keep in mind. It's very important.
And a note on distribution. So this happens. This has also happened. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. We had a French distributor who made a big sale call to China without ever letting us know. We only knew when they filed for bankruptcy and opened another company of a similar name.
And they said, oh, I owe you this? But you should ask this money for the French government now because we are closing. And then they open a new company. So careful. Careful is really important.
Listen to your audience. So don't underestimate kids. When we do the scripts and we think about the stories, we always create with the kids in mind. It's not what I think is nice or you. It's your audience. So will your audience like that? And you should ask them that. Hear them. Make changes. Improve. Test your content before going too far in a direction. So sometimes yeah, we follow the path. And then we only found out later on that was confusing and all that. So do your tests. Show kids. Show to your audience.
And a show can only have more seasons and thrive if the content connects with the audience. So that's an exhibition we did an IMAX, and the kids were amazing. And they were all giving feedbacks and all that. So yeah.
You're going to have fans, hopefully, and haters. Listen to the fans. Open communication through social media and contact forms to hear their opinion. And haters may appear. It's OK. You cannot please everyone.
Disney renews season two. So it's always a challenge to renew a show. So we got that, and it's an opportunity to improve the storytelling. What could we explore more about our characters, about our world? What does our-- and of course, you have to work on the funding of season two. So here we go again. We did the same strategy. We started producing ourselves. And then after we got the funding, we reimbursed ourselves.
KARL's website. So we provide extra content and engage with our audience through the website. We have our website in Portuguese and English. We have also part for the parents to download stuff and work with their kids.
A note on licensing opportunities. So licensing partners will demand high number of viewers, fans, and engagement before jumping into any deals. So it's very hard to land licensing deals. They have to see millions and millions and millions of subscribers and views and engagement. Yeah. So we did-- these are the few of the plushies we did of one of their main heroes, Milky. Kids love this guy.
We also expanded into games. So we produced the game Karl Racing, like a Mario Kart. So ideally your brand must reach to your audience in different places, ways, and formats. So a note on gaming. Remember that producing a game is one part of the challenge.
But having investments to boost it on platforms and make sure your audience will find your game is just as important. So yeah, you have to have the money, too, for marketing because the gaming market is great, but it's also very competitive. And a note here to be careful with the programming because programmers are always tricky.
Study your data analytics. So what episodes are most seen? What thumbnails works best? Which characters are your audience's favorites? At what point of your film do you lose your audience? All these factors help you manage your brand and make it stronger and hopefully everlasting. So you should study the analytics and then improve your scripts and your storytelling according to it. I'll show you a very good example of this.
So we noticed on one of our partner's YouTube channel, WildBrain, that every time the episodes with Ketchup Jack appeared-- so you have here and here and here-- it's went always all the way to the top. So 125 million views, 112 million views. So Jack alone had pretty much over 600 million views. So whoa, that's crazy! Ketchup Jack is a hit.
So we understood that this was special, and he needs like a special attention. Let's give the fans more of him. So then we started working on a feature film about his origin story, Mysterious Tales of Ketchup Jack.
KARL is now over one billion worldwide views. We have an English channel named KARL Animated Series, and we have a Portuguese and Spanish channel, CARLOS Série Animada. For those who are wondering, Why Karl? first I was going to give a name like a super something-- super man, super-- and then I said, no, I think I'm going to go with something more common because he's a common everyday hero. We are everyday heroes trying to struggle with moderation and healthy eating. So I picked a random common name in Carlos and Karl, and that's why.
And for YouTube, you must keep your content fresh and consistent and frequent. So otherwise, you just lose traction in your YouTube channel. Here's KARL's YouTube channel. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and all that-- KARL Animated Series.
And then we did a spin-off show named KARL Babies. So expanding the show's message of healthy habits, awareness through music for a younger audience. So here's the KARL Babies Chinese, Portuguese, and English, and Spanish. We did a few episodes in 2D. So it's the villains that you know in a cute form, and now we're doing also in 3D. So that's been really fun.
Here's KARL Babies YouTube channel, KARL Babies. Make sure to check that out. We do famous songs and also original songs, a mix of both. And that's the Ketchup Jack baby.
Diversify your revenue streams. So listen to KARL Babies at music platforms such as Spotify. So if your show really, really goes well, the music, this could be really profitable. So be aware of that, and make sure to register on your musician society. I don't know what the name is, but because you get the rights every time the music plays. I know a lot of producers who don't do that, and you're losing a lot of money.
Expand the brand. So have a 360 approach. Go beyond the digital. So this is a visit that we do at schools with kids. We give handouts. We sing with them. We created now two new characters. They are marionettes. So Hannah Banana and Jimmy Orange. So they help kids to connect and understand the show. So again, trying to get as many audiences in different places as possible. Also, e-books. We do a lot of e-books, audiobooks.
And the message just goes on and on. We receive parents saying, hey, my kid loves this. Look what he showed me. He's started to eat better now. He's seeing that, oh, papaya, it's healthy, right, dad? I'm eating papaya, look! Or yeah, so this is what is important for us-- to make a difference.
So KARL's franchise now has the animated series with three seasons. KARL Babies, two seasons. Ketchup Jack, the Halloween special. And we also have a feature film of Karl and the terminal villains cooking in the oven. Yeah, it's been such a fun ride. We're really excited about this.
A few of these things, we invested ourselves. A few of them was through the fundings. For the feature film, we might go with an international co-production. So it's really important to have these funding strategies. When you do an international co-production, your partner has to get, of course, the money from his side and spend that money on his side. And then you share the rights of the IP, of the product.
And you also have to have a channel attached. So let's say, for example, we from Brazil, we have Disney attached, and someone from Spain has their distributor attached, their channel attached. So then we can co-produce with these four players.
And a lot of co-productions, they end up dying because one of those don't get the money or don't get the partner. Then you waste a lot of time. So it's very tricky to co-produce, but it also gets a lot of things done. So if you want to co-produce, find a good co-producer. Know them. Date them so you can see how you work together. And then go into something bigger.
And it's very, very important to walk along with a fantastic team. So we really, really try to work on our culture to have this spirit, bright spirit every day. That's our slogan, "That's the Spirit." Because it's a hard, hard road. The journey, it is super fun, but it's very, very tough with high risk and lots of-- so it's important to walk this path with joy and with respect with an awesome team. So here's a bit of our gang.
And yeah, well, I would really like to wrap up this message that we all have a healthy conscience inside of us. So listen to it. Embrace moderation in your life. Healthy life, happy life. So keep that in mind, and your older self will thank you one day, for sure.
And at Spirit, we are really, really giving importance to our social purpose. So a legacy of positive thoughts and learnings about life, humanity, and love. We have a big responsibility when we do anything that we put out there into the world, especially if you talk to kids. So we have to help them.
So we have a show that was made with one of the major oncology hospitals in Brazil. So It's Going To Be All Right is the name that we created. It's about respect, love, empathy. We just finished up Celeste, which is about inclusion and diversity. We have a show called The Leaf Family with the Brazilian government about environment, recycling. We have a feature film that we're producing now called Rosie. It's about acceptance and self-love. KARL, that I'm sure you know by now. And also yeah. So that's our purpose. That's our spirit, stories that matter.
Make sure to download the handouts with more on how to unlock the secrets to building a billion-view global franchise. So there's more in-depth information there. I'm sure you're going to like it, so be sure to get that.
And if you have any questions, cool ideas, or new projects or just say hello, it's going to be a pleasure to hear from you. I hope you really liked this talk. Again, if there's any doubt you want, please reach out. We are based in Curitiba. It's a great city here in Brazil, but we work globally.
Check our Instagram to see more on life at Spirit. Our Vimeo channel. And yeah, it's great to be here. I'd like to thank the Autodesk University for this opportunity. It's a hard journey that sometimes you have to follow figure out by yourself. So that's why it's really important for us to have these things and this sharing of knowledge available out there so we can all help each other and grow together.
So thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. That's the spirit.