here<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe multiplatform team features the expertise of both seasoned pros and up-and-coming talent, Guzzardo said, \u201cwho have the sensibility of YouTube and TikTok. It\u2019s been amazing to see this dynamic of these two worlds coming together. And you can see it in the work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Short-form videos \u201cas a unit of storytelling are amazingly portable. A single short, when done right, can go on all those places and thrive there organically. Shorts for us have just been this incredibly efficient and portable way to get the characters out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plus, Guzzardo said, shorts are in Disney\u2019s DNA. \u201cGo back to a place and time when Mickey Mouse did not exist. Charming character, new technology, with animation. How is [Walt Disney] going to get it out there? He used shorts as a vehicle to bring Mickey to the biggest platform around, which was movie theaters. What we do now is a lot more complex with all these different platforms and different competition, and there\u2019s a lot out there, but it\u2019s essentially the same approach. We are using shorts to bring our characters out into the world, win over fans and then bring them back.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the heart of multiplatform\u2019s content strategy is an emphasis on \u201crecurring, proven anthology formats. We like to find a hook or a premise or a conceit that will immediately grab the audience and carry them through. Ideally, you hook the audience, and then you deliver on that promise. The anthology formats also allow us to release on a recurring cadence, so we\u2019re always on. We don\u2019t like to let more than a month go by between releasing an episode of that format. We\u2019re always engaging the viewer. We look at season breaks and push through. If a show has aired, if the show has sunset, if it\u2019s a show that\u2019s maybe three, four years old or longer, but they\u2019re still fans, those are characters that we want to bring back out and keep them always on for viewers who find them on Disney+ and from their perspective, those characters are just as vibrant and relevant today as they were when the show first came out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The slate includes Chibi Tiny Tales<\/em>, which has notched up more than 100 episodes since originating as shorts for Big Hero 6<\/em>. \u201cIt was taking a familiar character, but subverts them in a way. You see the thumbnail, and it\u2019ll raise a question in your mind. I started thinking there was a format where we could focus on all of our shows and even movies, any Disney story, as a chibi. The variety helps keep the audience\u2019s attention. The subversion of the familiar. Once we have that established, we start looking at where else we can go with this. I started thinking about where these chibis live. Why are they chibis? They\u2019re Disney scientists who have taken all of the Disney stories, props, scripts and everything that\u2019s out there, and they\u2019ve crammed them into this mashup machine. And then the mashup machine compresses them down to this tiny little bean of a planet. And then they use their microscopes to look in. Those are the stories we get to tell. That\u2019s the Chibiverse<\/em>, which is a seven-minute series that we do. We package them into three for every half hour to be part of our long-form slate. I didn\u2019t know we were going there when we started with Big Hero 6<\/em>, but it evolved and by looking at the the metrics and watching them constantly and seeing what the audience wants and what they\u2019re responding to we found something that works and evolved it and optimized it. It\u2019s a very flexible, not very precious process.\u201d<\/p>\nThe short-form slate allows the team to \u201clean into a character that the audience likes. The long-form series could take a while to produce. If we start seeing that one character is really popping or there\u2019s interest in a character\u2019s backstory that wasn\u2019t answered in the canon of the series, we have an opportunity to answer those questions and we\u2019re able to get the short out even further.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shorts do serve as a funnel to help drive traffic to Disney\u2019s other platforms. \u201cOn YouTube, we have 1.1 billion lifetime views. There are a lot of eyeballs there. It equates to, in 2024, 25 million views a month, 800,000 to 900,000 views a day. That\u2019s the billboard. You want to be up there. It is that big funnel that we are pulling viewers in from, much like Walt with Mickey. Where are future fans? In movie theaters, so let\u2019s get Mickey shorts in front of them. Our future fans and current fans are on YouTube, TikTok and all those places. Let\u2019s get our characters in front of them there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shorts also air as interstitials on the linear channels, which then helps to drive traffic back to Disney\u2019s channels on YouTube.<\/p>\n
Guzzardo offered up advice for how content owners should be thinking about the short-form space. \u201cI would suggest that they find what they should retain and hold on dearly to\u2014what sensibilities, what traditional parts of storytelling can they not give up? And then what do they need to jettison immediately? My recommendation for what that is is preciousness\u2014getting it exactly right. I believe in developing out loud. If we\u2019ve made this the best we can with the information that we have at this moment, get it out there. There will be more insights that way. Use YouTube and TikTok as your incubation labs. Use it as your focus group. If you get some qualitative data, great. You\u2019re gonna get quant for sure. What\u2019s the click-through rate of this character? What\u2019s the audience retention rate? Are they dropping off halfway through or right at the beginning? Are they watching all the way through? And then use that information. Become very familiar with the CMS on YouTube or whatever platform you\u2019re distributing on and use the native analytics tools for those platforms to understand what your audience is interested in and what they\u2019re not and then take that data back into your writers room, the next short of that format or a new format that it might inspire.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s much in traditional storytelling techniques that should be retained, he said. \u201cThey might need to be compressed. I\u2019m a fan of Buster Keaton. He still has lessons that teach me today on where your eye is going across the screen. It\u2019s very well designed, and the beats are paced out nicely. Something will happen over here that connects to there. You watch him as a live-action cartoon going across the screen. He holds your attention. He\u2019s hooked you with the kinetic potential of a moment. And then you have to lean in. His instincts apply to today. So find what you\u2019ve learned through a lot of challenges over the years and hold onto those storytelling tools. But maybe you don\u2019t need an exterior shot that is pulling us into a scene. Maybe just get right into it and you hook us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hooking an audience member also begins before they\u2019ve hit play, Guzzardo explained. \u201cI try to hook a viewer in their mind before they\u2019ve even clicked on your video. Once they tap on it, then you have to deliver on that promise, otherwise they\u2019ll jump off and then the algorithm will pay attention\u2014the click-through rate was high but the retention\u2019s low, they\u2019re not delivering on whatever they promised the viewer that got them to click. And then we won\u2019t get recommended to more people. So find that hook that is baked into the conceit and then deliver on it to hold a viewer the whole time. If you follow that process over and over again, over the years, you can\u2019t help but perform better because you\u2019re using the audience to tell you how to optimize.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Guzzardo started in the business, Flash was being used as a medium for storytelling; that technology is now defunct. \u201cIt\u2019s important to remember: we\u2019re on shifting tectonic plates in this industry. You could build whole production pipelines and vendor ecosystems on Flash and then within a year it disappears and you have to shift into something else. I get excited when I think about how many different things I\u2019ve had to do and change into over the years to entertain kids and families. It keeps me on my toes. I don\u2019t get complacent. Up-and-coming folks just starting their careers should take heart in that because it\u2019s a real opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Constant evolution is paramount, Guzzardo said as the session wrapped. \u201cUnder the leadership of Ayo Davis, we are not only following what Walt originally started with getting our characters out there, but she coaches and advises us to keep it fresh and to evolve the strategy. It\u2019s not build it, set it and forget it. We have to always be on our toes and evolve where we\u2019re going and where the audience is going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gino Guzzardo, VP for multiplatform content at Disney Branded Television, offered up some valuable perspectives on producing compelling short-form content as day two of the TV Kids Summer Festival wrapped today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":29795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[5750,11024,10985],"class_list":["post-29794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-disney-branded-television","tag-gino-guzzardo","tag-tv-kids-summer-festival-2025","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n
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