One of the things that came out of the meeting the other night was talk of how to promote ThunderCats Lair on YouTube!
Now, I remember Mark set up a YouTube account for the site, to show off a TCats-themed clip that showed up in an episode of Family Guy - however, when I went to view this video recently, it seems it got taken down due to a complaint from Family Guyās copyright holders!
Iām wondering if this means that the YouTube account that Mark set up for the site has also been deleted?
Anyway - Iāve got some plans for promoting the site on YouTube, and there were some other very good ideas that came up in the meeting. I think whilst weāre waiting to get the new version of the site online, this could be quite a good project to put energy into!
Here are some of the ideas I had, and also ideas from other members of the team that came up in the meeting:
Iād like to put together short 20- or 30-second āTCL promo clipsā using short clips from the cartoon. Remember Toonamiās old TCats bumpers? A bit like those! I need to sort out how to get footage from a DVD onto my computer - so, thatās something I need to look intoā¦
Some while ago, Kyle put together an amazing promotional piece showing off all the features on the site: http://www.thundercatslair.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2751 . To my knowledge weāve never done anything with it, and I think it would be a good thing to get onto YouTube!
Nick was talking about re-editing and uploading his TCats interviews onto YouTube. Again, I think this is an amazing idea!
Neil was talking about doing ThunderCats action figure reviews - again, what a superb idea!
What about any of the team who own them doing reviews of the Hard Hero statues as well?
My suggestion would be that all of this stuff be concentrated onto one official ThunderCats Lair YouTube channel rather than spread across team membersā individual YouTube channels - that way, you have one definitive ThunderCats source on YouTube!
Any thoughts, ideas, comments, etc., particularly about how this might all be made to happen, would be very welcome - many thanks, guys!
As you can see, we already have one new video added to the YouTube channel, the one put together by the legendary Mr. Kyle Lambert to promote this site! And, both the video and the siteās new YouTube channel are now being promoted on the front page!
This is an exciting moment, and it would be amazing if, over the coming weeks, we were able to get together some more content to add to this - this could be an exciting new avenue for the site!
OK gang, here we are in 2010, and I have to say I think our YouTube channel is going great guns - with over 514 channel views, 13,000 total upload views, 39 subscribers and a buzzing comments section, I think for the early days of the channel thatās very good going!
Iāve been thinking about what content I could add to help Mark keep the channel ticking over, and wondered whether it might be a good idea to add some of the videos we have hosted at this site already - specifically, I wondered about these ādeleted scenesā from the āmovieā version of āExodusā: http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/cartoonguide/articles/deleted_scenes.html .
Fans are constantly scouring YouTube for these, and even some of our forum members seem unaware that we have them hosted on this site. If I had a go at adding a ThunderCats Lair ident of some kind to the beginning of these, with a copyright notice at the end, I think these could make a lovely addition. What do you guys think?
Iām eager not to get this site into trouble with Warner Bros and so would make sure that the copyright disclaimer at the end mentioned their ownership of the property - Iāve also found Warner Bros tend to be quite cool about things like this, as itās all advertising for their propertyā¦
My podcast has suddenly hit the roof and I have several interviews scheduled over the next couple of weeks - therefore, itās going to be very difficult for me to āre-editā my interviews as Iād hoped to have done. So my suggestion is that we just upload them as they are - I think theyāre good enough and serve it justice. I can create the videoās themselvesā¦ but I need several banners.
My idea is this: the Thundercats Lair logo, the lion background, a picture of the interviewee and a caption to say āAn interview with [insert name]ā
So Iād need one for all of the interviews we didā¦ Earle Hyman, Larry Kenney, Peter Newman, Lynne Lipton, Bernie Hoffer (is that his name?), Jim Meskimen, Peter Lawrence, Kimberly Morris, Stephen Perry and Gerrianne Raphael.
Once I get those, I can create āpartsā and upload them to your channel. Sound good?
Sounds fantastic to me, what do the rest of you guys think?
The pictures shouldnāt be a problem at all, I can sort those out I reckon - ditto I wouldnāt have thought the TCL logo would pose a problem (and Iāll need this for the videos Iām planning anyway - see above).
For the āAn Interview Withā caption, will you need a separate caption for each interview - i.e., one that says āAn Interview with Larry Kenneyā, another that says āAn Interview with Lynne Liptonā, and so on? Again, easy enough to do, but just wanted to check that thatās what youād need.
Not 100% sure what you mean by the lion background, though - do you mean the ThunderCats symbol, or some other image? Perhaps you could LMK, my friend.
Well gang, if we could get my videos up (assuming everyone thinks thatās an OK idea) and Nickās interviews up, well, all I can say is that weāve got a really buzzing YouTube channel, which should hopefully help to bring new visitors to this site!
Could we start each interview video with a shortened version or a specific part of Kyleās video? Thatās the kind of branding Iād really like us to put at the start and end of our vids.
Chris: Go right ahead and put whatever T-Cats content you want up. There are clips and entire episodes on youtube that havenāt been taken down in years and I donāt think WB cares what goes up there from this property. Worst thing that could happen is that youtube removes the video and we lose nothing. Have at her.
Hey Mark, thanks for that, appreciate the insight!
Iād love to see us start off each video with some sort of branding - unfortunately at my end Iām stuck using Windows Movie Maker, which wonāt accept an mp4 video file, which is what Kyle has saved the promo video as (Movie Maker is a pretty limited piece of software, to be honest).
Iāve had a bash at something similar - this is about as good as I can do with Movie Maker, but if I say so myself I think itās pretty decent - thought Iād show it to you guys before I upload it to YouTube, LMK what you think!
Looks great, Iāll upload that first once Chris, I thought this scene was in the actual movie, didnāt realize it was a deleted scene. I have a couple cels from that exact scene actually!
Will load it to youtube shortly.
Once itās up on youtube should we embed the youtube on the website instead of the version weāve loaded to the site?
The first 20 seconds or so of that scene do appear in the stand-alone version of the episode - but everything that happens after that (from Tygraās line āJagaās rightā to the end of the scene) was cut.
Great to see it up on YouTube, well done Mark!
Iād say leave it for now, but when we update the site using WordPress, it would definitely be worth looking at the page and seeing if we can replace the linked versions of the clips with the YouTube videos!
Yes - it would help to get an image of the person followed by a caption.. for voice-actors, an image of some of their characters would help.
e.g. Larry Kenneyās banner - image of Larry Kenney, image of Lion-O, image of Jackelman, Thundercats symbol in the background and a caption with āAn interview with Larry Kenneyā. Also, include an image of the ThunderCatsLair.org logo.
For writers, just an image and a caption will do (with the background).
Could we start each interview video with a shortened version or a specific part of Kyleās video? Thatās the kind of branding Iād really like us to put at the start and end of our vids.
Yep - thatās fine. Iāll include the voiceover I had everyone record for me - was supposed to use them for the podcast but we can use them as a nice segway/intro for the phone-call like interviews.
Hey gang, looking through my ThunderCats Lair folder, I just remembered that I completed making up YouTube videos for all the deleted scenes from ThunderCats: Exodus, as per the one I uploaded for you guys to see! Iād completely forgotten all about this! smacks forehead
Mark, is it cool with you if I log into the TCL YouTube channel and add these?
Also, if itās not there already, could I suggest linking to this siteās YouTube channel on the front page of the forthcoming new site design? I think it would be a good move - social media is where itās at right now!
Annoyingly, youtube insists that you pair your youtube account with a google account. As Iāve stupidly done that with my personal gmail account that I actually use, and as youtube stupidly doesnāt allow you to change it once youāve paired it once, the only way I could give you access would be if I gave you my personal e-mail addy and pass which is my password for everything, so Iām sorry but unless its an emergency Iād rather that I upload the vids.
If you can point me at them or upload them to the site somewhere Iāll go ahead and put them on the youtube account.
Hey Mark - no problems, completely understand. Thereās no way Iād expect you to start handing out your personal e-mail passwords out, that would be above and beyond the call of duty! Itās annoying that YouTube have made you do that, as before it used to have an independent username and password that allowed any of the team to access itā¦
If this is cool with you, what I shall probably do in this case is upload the deleted scenes videos to the team directory for you to access, and write up some text in Notepad to accompany each one for you to copy-and-paste into the video description. LMK if this sounds OK, Mark, and Iāll get onto it ASAP!
