A few updates for 12,018! (Feedback welcome)
Added 2018-03-02 09:39:34 +0000 UTCHey Patrons, time for an update post! Feedback is very welcome!
First of all – do you guys have any questions? If so ask them in the comments and I’ll try to answer all of them tonight!
1. Release dates. From now on we just make as many videos as we can and release them once they are finished. It makes no sense to promise videos every two weeks or so, we can’t do it. Some videos turn out to be longer than others, or we stumble over unforeseen complications or we are trying new things. My goal for 12,018 is 20 videos! We are doing our best to get to that number and it looks pretty good right now!
2. We want to update this Patreon soon. Adding a few rewards, make a new Patreon video etc. Is there anything you guys think we should do? Any suggestion or wishes for new rewards? Do the old rewards work out? Any feedback?
3. The German channel is back! With support of the German broadcast agencies we finally have the funds to properly redo our favorites in German. And they are even sponsoring the production of a few originals that will be reales in German first. We haven’t chosen all of the topics yet, so we might do one or two that are super Germany specific and won’t makes sense to release in English. But every video that you guys might like will be released as a sort of super bonus videos in English. Probably early next year. Please let me stress that all of the German stuff does not in the slightest influence the English Channel – the English Channel is still financed by this Patreon, Merchandise and our usual business model of doing commercial work on the side.
4. Behind the scenes. We really, really want to do one this year. But we are not sure what should be in it. What do you find the most interesting? The process of how we make a video? Who we are and why we do Kurzgesagt? Would you like real world footage or would you prefer it animated (I don’t think we would do in front of the camera talking stuff but we might film a bit in the office). Let us know.
Ok! Mini update over. Let us know what you think. And as always, thank you so much for being here. You are the reason we can do what we do. – Philipp
Comments
A behind the scenes video would be very very nice! Show how you guys animate, record the voice, etc.
Eduardo Gomes Heleno
2018-08-10 23:24:55 +0000 UTCWould be cool to ''meet the team'', see the beautiful people behind the videos :) Lots of strengt to all of you, just heard about Philipp.
István Borzás
2018-04-02 13:09:55 +0000 UTCYou go, great job!!
Alan Hsu
2018-03-15 21:19:00 +0000 UTCYou should do more videos about biology and genetics and synthetic biology!
Brennan Degen
2018-03-08 18:53:06 +0000 UTCGreat work guys!!! Love it! Could you maybe make something showing the creation process, mixing animation and real footage?
Marcos Welker
2018-03-06 01:27:25 +0000 UTCA behind the scenes video would be really great. How about in the style like this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsKzCiQBGU" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsKzCiQBGU</a>
Buzzn Frogg
2018-03-05 12:15:28 +0000 UTCI would enjoy watching you talk about what inspired each of you to work on creating these incredible videos. What were each of you doing before and what was that moment when you decided to start or join Kurzgesagt.
Elyas Bin Yahya Abdul-Ghaffar Rucker
2018-03-04 21:48:26 +0000 UTCOnly to Point 4, I'd say, too make us see the creaters could be aquard for both Sides. Would prefere those coole animations for everything … Sometimes even in real live xD
Andreas Desch
2018-03-04 20:58:00 +0000 UTCI'd say your content is just great as you currently produce it. Rewards are cool an all ( I would straight up buy pin badges) and bts content is cool too ☺️
Rake
2018-03-04 08:31:53 +0000 UTC"The process of how we make a video? Who we are and why we do Kurzgesagt?" - These would be two interesting ideas to learn about. Also, I very much like your simplistic but expressive animation and would prefer that more than a real-world presentation. Keep up the hard/good work Team K,
Norm
2018-03-04 06:36:18 +0000 UTCLove to know how to make these videos. I am already an Advanced After Effects user and would like to know your techniques. Also at least once I would love to see a real video called "who we are" and saying hello to the camera and the inspiration as to why you make these amazing videos
Stephen Mylonas
2018-03-04 00:52:12 +0000 UTCRegarding 'Behind the Scenes' - Any candid video clips of the Kurzgesagt crew working laced with usual Kurzgesagt narrative would be great. Focusing on who you are and why you do what you do would be great. Pretty much anything you do will be appreciated. :) Also, I (and surely many others) would love video a video about the future of the global socioeconomic system, maybe one that conveys a comprehensive train of thought regarding the history of money and markets, economics in general, automation, unemployment, "zero marginal cost", ephemeralization, current and future technologies, the "IoT", the need for collaboration and cooperation, social and cultural trends, etc... maybe even touch upon a "Resource-Based Economy", as was conveyed by Peter Joseph in the films Zeitgeist Addendum and Zeitgeist Moving Forward by Jacque Fresco of the Venus Project. Maybe do an entire video regarding the book 'TZM Defined: Realizing a New Train of Thought', or Peter Joseph's new book 'The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression', or even Jacque Fresco's class book 'The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, and War"? Love all that you do, I share it with all, and hope the best for you all!
Moses Rodrigues
2018-03-03 20:57:34 +0000 UTCMe and my brother really enjoy watching your videos. We would love to see how your videos are made. I guess you could mix real life footage with some animation to show us the process and get to know a bit about the team. Anyway, keep up the good work!
2018-03-03 14:28:43 +0000 UTCYou are doing an awesome job, I trust your decisions how to go forward.
Dan
2018-03-03 14:10:00 +0000 UTCPlease translate 'A New History for Humanity – The Human Era' to German! That's my favorite
2018-03-03 10:43:04 +0000 UTCI would love to know about the minds behind the channel content. Tell us the stories of who you are, what inspires you, and how your creative process works. I think it would be cool if it were real footage, but it's fine if you don't want to show faces... maybe shoot literally from the creators' perspectives with real voices.
Andy Holaday
2018-03-02 23:54:57 +0000 UTCI agree! I love their artwork, design, and illustrations and would love some breakdown on how Kurzgesagt creates them.
2018-03-02 23:03:14 +0000 UTCFirst of all, I think the recent videos have been absolutely amazing, the content is super interesting and the illustrations + animations are top notch. I think everyone's preferences are different, but I'd love to see an in depth look into the illustration process of Kurzgesagt. The Skillshare Motion Graphics video was extremely helpful and I've learned so much through it. I would love to see a similar Illustration tutorial. For example, I've always wondered how you manage to get such beautiful colour schemes in the illustration. Do you use a specific tool for that, is it training? Those are the kind of questions I'd love to see answered.
Roan Laenen
2018-03-02 21:02:26 +0000 UTCWould love to get more high quality wallpapers e.t.c Keep up the great work and just proud that I can help do what amazing people do.
Louis Cohen
2018-03-02 20:24:29 +0000 UTCWould love to learn about your "stack." Meaning, who uses what tools to get what done. Animation software, project management tools, hardware you use in the office. Imagine I was a high school student looking to be the next kurzgsagt – give me the cheat codes to push the boundaries even further!!! Even if specific topic choices are not ideal, my goal is simply to give the next generation the codes to not only keep this type of work going, but accelerate it!
Omar Mohamed
2018-03-02 18:59:03 +0000 UTCBehind the scenes: 90% want to know who you all are, and why you do what you do, maybe expand on how Optimistic Nihilism functions as a criteria in your work. 10% technically how you do it. As a reward or just for fun: I mentioned this in the sub reddit and you had a positive response to it, but I would love a 10 minute mindfulness meditation with your voice actor and musicians, on the up side it would need little to no animation. Thanks for doing what you do. I love the hard science!
Chris Lyons
2018-03-02 18:20:13 +0000 UTCIt would be great to know a little bit more of the process of making a video, from choosing a concept, ideation and execution!
Guilherme
2018-03-02 17:48:38 +0000 UTCI want to see real life behind the scenes. Meet everyone who's involved and who make the show possible. As much as I love the animation, I fell some real life footage would make your content/channel more personable. Keep up the spectacular work!
2018-03-02 17:25:20 +0000 UTCTo 1. That is totally ok. Your video quality shouldn't suffer from deadlines. Just release the videos once you are comfortable with them :) To 3. That is so great. I hope the german channel gets more famous as you're continuing to upload videos! To 4. I would like to see how you are recording your videos. Are there funny bloopers? Whats a typical work day for you? How do you animate all that wonderful stuff? Preferably I'd like to see a mostly real world footage of it. You guys are great :)
Roland Deml
2018-03-02 17:16:56 +0000 UTCA behind the scenes would be really cool! It would be interesting to see how you communicate and put everything together, since I know you guys probably have many different jobs.
Matthew
2018-03-02 16:27:34 +0000 UTCYou say you wouldn't talk in front of the camera, and I'm a bit curious as to why. It would be great to see the people behind what Kurzgesagt has become. Anything new you want to do with Patron rewards is great- just make sure it's scalable. What we don't want is for the Patreon work to become detrimental to the core videos. I agree you shouldn't be pushing yourself to make deadlines. Quality comes first. Once you've got it, release it. Thanks for the informative and entertaining videos you've made so far. Here's to many more.
Allen Setzer
2018-03-02 16:21:31 +0000 UTCA bloopers video from all your years of hard work would be so funny. We all love you guys so as long as you keep making us a bit smarter we will keep supporting you. I think I would also be really interested in knowing how you decide on which topics you will be working on next! Cheers!
Andrés B
2018-03-02 16:16:45 +0000 UTCI would really enjoy seeing the office, the team (especially putting a face to the voice actor), and to see HOW topics are picked. The topic picking is impressive and on point, I would really like to know a bit about the thought process. Thanks for everything you guys do, I love your videos and love to share them.
Michael Malocha
2018-03-02 16:10:09 +0000 UTCFirstly I'd like to thank you for the amazing content you put out there. It gives me something to look forward to everytime I open YouTube. 4. I cannot put in words how much I love your graphics. I would love to see more about it. The process behind the creation, the team and how the team comes up with it. I love how you put everything together in a unique way so I'd love to know more how the team comes up with the idea, the research behind it, etc. I wanna get to know the individuals behind the making of Kurzgesagt.
Rashmi Mallik
2018-03-02 16:09:45 +0000 UTCMore videos on space issues and theories!
Kohei Zama
2018-03-02 15:46:22 +0000 UTC4. I'd love to see the faces behind the project, to know more about you, guys.
2018-03-02 14:58:50 +0000 UTCI hope I'm not alone in saying this: you're already doing what we want to see. That's why we support you. Don't waste time on Patreon rewards or other "special" content. Just please keep putting out Kurzgesagt videos at the quality you can take pride in, as often as is reasonable. That's plenty.
Benjamin Moore
2018-03-02 14:36:04 +0000 UTCI really love your work. I hope in the future you become a large business, with lots of translations (please spanish soon, crossing fingers), even a kids channel (i imagine my sons growing with the curiosity and awe that your videos inspire). With your videos in schools and museums. With even more specialist taking part on your project, with Q&A forums, with common areas in internet open to debate without the trolls and mean comments. I really hope that your passion to deliver good quality info keeps spreading like crazy! Keep up the good work.
Cristian Navarro Parraguez
2018-03-02 14:20:21 +0000 UTCHey all! Excellent work on the most recent video. A few of my notes: 2) I would love to see a one-time "Patreon Contest/Fundraiser" to get a chance to fly over to Germany and meet the team for a day! That would be awesome, and I bet a lot of people would jump on that opportunity. Plus, it would give you guys a large lump-sum of money to use for equipment improvements, bonuses, etc. 4) Releasing a Behind-the-Scenes video of what your office looks like, who the team is, and how you guys make the videos from start-to finish would be awesome. I think a lot of people would be interested to see the inner cogwheels of Kurzgesagt. Superimposing some of your animations (like Duck) on a live video would he great too. Breaking the fourth wall. Just my two cents. Keep up the good work!
Michael Harrington
2018-03-02 13:46:08 +0000 UTCHi, regarding #4, I would love to know the entire process of making a video, from choosing the subject, meeting experts, reading materials, writing the script, testing visual effects and I suppose asking for feedbacks... You could tell us how much time it takes, who is involved and how it is done. Keep up the great work !!! Best. Roch
Roch Feuillade
2018-03-02 13:31:08 +0000 UTCHello, Thank you for your work, love your philosophy. It's cool for you to have taiwanese subtitles for my father to understand. Don't have much time, but just to say that I agree with Eduardo. Yours sincerely, JH
JH Lui
2018-03-02 12:57:00 +0000 UTCFirst of all thanks for all your hard work! I would personally love to see the faces of the humans behind the videos and maybe a sneak peek of the office!
Federico Cavaletto
2018-03-02 12:13:46 +0000 UTCHello, Thank you for your work. Regarding the 'very specif German' issues, I get that and understand the extra work of doing it in English. Even so, knowledge is knowledge and I think their are a lot of people that think the same way and are just curious of everything. So, my suggestion: some nicely done subtitles : ) Best, Eduardo G.
Eduardo Gonçalves
2018-03-02 12:08:17 +0000 UTCI love kurzgesagt and I want to have it translated in Ukrainian. I am communicating this to volunteers who does the translation, but it looks like they just recording their voices over original. Is it possible to make globalized videos, which will contain everything, but speech (English and German) and in the best case scenario even free placeholders in video to stick in localized messages? It can be spread to trustworthy translators to any language. In my mind this will foster popularization of the your videos and valuable ideas you share.
Borys Lebeda
2018-03-02 11:38:17 +0000 UTCI love you guys. Partly because I love learning about all sorts of different things. So much so that I just realized (like in the last week) that my dream job is probably something like working at Quora: "Our mission is to share and grow the world's knowledge." I think my personal mission might be to figure out how to align societal values with human values. In Kurzgesagt's "Addiction" video, you say we need to build a society that’s a lot more like a human “Rat Park”. I propose that when society’s values (ie. getting a well-paying job makes you successful) conflict with values that are more human (ie. doing what you love for a living makes you successful), it creates huge barriers to that. Filters, you could say. I have a couple video requests that I believe would help work towards solutions to this problem: 1) Critical Thinking - “Are You Really in Control of Your Own Mind?” The spread and usage of misinformation is a barrier to individuality and effective solutions. (If you’re into anime, the latest episodes of Boruto present this really well.) 2) Self Improvement - “How to Find Your Passion” There’s way too many people that get stuck doing things that they don’t love doing. Let’s fix that. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for doing what you do. Keep it up!
quasar
2018-03-02 10:57:48 +0000 UTCI feel like I'm at a point where your videos and the good example that you guys are, make me reconsider my current career path. I feel I have to get into science education at some point in the future. I think the wonder and awe your videos stir in me and others is missing in a lot of people today. So long story short: I'm most interested in your motivation behind starting this project and in your process and how it evolved over time.
Kay Brinkmann
2018-03-02 10:55:17 +0000 UTCFirst of all, I want to say that I extremely appreciate the effort you and Lizzy put in every project, researching different topic for every video and jumping from major to major is no easy task and obviously overwhelming. However, to be completely honest I have a blind trust in your work that I actually started to source your videos in my arguments. My trust in your research have started when I had watched videos related to my feild and noticed how on point the accuracy of your informations are. Therefor, I believe it will be beneficial to demonstrate the research process behind the scene as it will be a showcase of the quality of your videos in terms of accuracy which I could share after I sourced your videos in my arguments and help share your channel as a reliable source of interesting and sometimes controversial topics.
Kurzgesagt fan
2018-03-02 10:48:49 +0000 UTCTwo birds with smoking heads, drowning in stacks of paper, trying to make sense of the world and what they are reading.. and desperately cramming the entire stack into an (microwave) oven, so after 200 more hours, a nice tasty episode pops out with confetti and all.. That's how it works.. right? That's what black boxes are for, after all. Just put things and money in there, and tadaaaa: Science!
L4m3ness
2018-03-02 10:46:25 +0000 UTCThis might be too invasive for your kind of content, but I really like how "Adam ruins everything" handles their sources (they have small text overlays of the source every time Adam explains a concept). But as I said, maybe that’s to annoying on top of your beautiful animation.
Kay Brinkmann
2018-03-02 10:43:48 +0000 UTCI think you guys are definitely among the best people across the whole internet when it comes to gathering and vetting massive breadths of knowledge, building a coherent topic out of it, then stripping it down to essentials that are comprehensible in a bite-sized presentation. It would be absolutely fascinating (and empowering) to get an inside look at how this process develops. Maybe having the research portion as part of a wider segment that tells the story of how a script develops from scratch? I guess that might not be possible to do in an adequate way - I can imagine the process might be very messy and individual to each project.
Boris Dimitrov
2018-03-02 10:42:10 +0000 UTCWho are you and why are you doing it - that's actually something I've been wondering about recently. Who inspired you? A wild guess would be the Science journalists Harald Lesch and Ranga Yogeshwar. But who are you guys? What's your general background? I would assume, there is probably a bunch of physicists and probably a biologist or two in there. And probably a lot of designers and professional animators that - I would assume - carry a bulk of the total workload of a video (60%?). What was the challenge in finding new team members - considering you said that it is or was hard to find anyone who actually does what you do? What was the required skill set? How did you come together? How does the work process look like? Do you guys physically meet or is it mainly 'home office' and skype conferences? And most importantly: Why is Duck the most fabulous bird around? I think in the spirit of Kurzgesagt, an animated Kurzgesagt video about Kurzgesagt would be more interesting and fitting than real world footage.
L4m3ness
2018-03-02 10:40:54 +0000 UTCI've thought about this a long time. Like how can we show what is basically me and Lizzy reading books and papers for hours, skyping or meeting with scientists and talking. Nowadays we have almost no videos were we don't talk to at least one scientist or expert. It may be the selection of sources – nothing that is in a newspaper counts. And if we find good articles we always look at the sources and papers they are based on.
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
2018-03-02 10:22:25 +0000 UTCThis is a very frustrating point. As Europeans we are very unhappy with the current situation. The problem is that currently there is no good option for this. We are looking for a solution!!
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
2018-03-02 10:19:43 +0000 UTCIst geplant für später im Jahr! : )
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
2018-03-02 10:17:58 +0000 UTCMakes total sense! So the reason we are able to do it (and why we wouldn't have been able to do it last year) is twofold: More people and the team got better. On the one hand we straight up hired more humans over the last 12 months. The team is reaching the point at which we will not hire anyone anymore. But the more important factor is that some of the people we trained for the last 1-2 years became "senior". We have a hard time finding people who can do exactly what we do, so we instead got a bunch of trainees and well, trained them. They got really good! We hired the best ones and they became full Kurzgesagt team members. Our productivity is the highest it has ever been right now and it will further improve this year.
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
2018-03-02 10:16:38 +0000 UTCit'll be nice to actually see some faces but a whole vlog style video is pretty boring perhaps. maybe a mix with some animated history (how did you start this project and so on).
Uwe
2018-03-02 10:05:49 +0000 UTCI would really love to see the research process behind the topics you covered in your channel, and how you determine the validity and accuracy of the informations you present in your videos. That will be very interesting. Keep up the good work :)
Kurzgesagt fan
2018-03-02 10:03:42 +0000 UTCExcellent update! Thanks for your inspiring and amazing work!! Regarding number (3) you say that "the German stuff does not in the slightest influence the English Channel" but if you take into account that every video needs X ammount of manhours (a few hunderd) then it will affect it a bit. Still making 2 videos per month is more than impressive target! I am not moaning or anything, I am just curious to see how this would work. The main reason people are worried about the german channel is the same reason if your crew decreases which translates: less videos. You guys are an oasis in Youtube!!!
j. d.
2018-03-02 10:03:22 +0000 UTCHow about opening a Euopean store with merchandise? DFTBA is good, but works mostly for Americans more than Europeans. Import taxes and high shipping costs are awful :(
Gilberto
2018-03-02 09:58:39 +0000 UTCAlso please do more stuff on anti-aging research. Love all of your stuff you guys are the best.
CJ Canton
2018-03-02 09:54:45 +0000 UTCKönnen Sie bitte Optimistic Nihilism auf Deutsch machen für Ihres nächsten deutschen Video? Das wäre ja toll.
CJ Canton
2018-03-02 09:53:06 +0000 UTCFirst thing - Thanks for your work. I love your content and the way you deliver it. On point 4- I think a walk through of the creative process with a mix of animations and irl footage. Same style you tend to deliver in, of course.
Jason Stetzel
2018-03-02 09:51:59 +0000 UTC