Season 1 Of CB Fest Surpasses 8 Million Views
The first season of Cartoon Brew’s CB Fest, a screening series of bold short-form animation from around the globe, exceeded 8 million views this week.
CB Fest’s first season was comprised of eight animated films that had their online premieres in June and July. All of the films can be seen HERE.
Each short in the series was premiered simultaneously on Vimeo, Youtube, and Facebook. In less than three months, those films have received a combined 6.5 million views on Vimeo, 825K views on Youtube, and 675K views on Facebook.
The film curators at Vimeo picked six of the eight films – 75% – for their Vimeo Staff Pick honor. Also, we presented two of the shorts – Jennifer Zheng’s BAFTA-nominated Tough and Matt Reynold’s Hot Dog Hands – as co-premieres with the short film experts at Short of the Week.
Another film in the series, Lori Malépart-Traversy’s Le Clitoris, became a viral hit that transcended the film and animation community and received write-ups in dozens of mainstream publications, including Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, Le Figaro, and Dazed, to name but a few.
Our goal for the series was to draw attention to unique animated shorts that express a personal point of view. With the logjam of content appearing online nowadays, it’s easy for even the most excellent of films to get lost in the shuffle, and giving filmmakers an extra boost of attention as they debuted their work online would’ve made this series a success.
What we didn’t expect is that the first season of CB Fest would surpass eight million film views, a viewership that far exceeds the number of people who saw these shorts during their film festival runs. It’s even more surprising since potential viewership wasn’t really a consideration when we were curating the series. We wanted to present fresh voices in animation – that’s all. It’s immensely gratifying that millions of people have discovered these films, and proof positive that audiences are yearning for new voices and new ideas in animated filmmaking.
We are currently planning a second season of shorts that will launch this fall. The program is nearly set, but there are still a couple of slots that haven’t been filled. If you have a quality short film that you’re getting ready to premiere online, submit your film soon.
