yea. like Ileke-idi says, each character should have a different voice (one person can do this. he/she just have to "form" the voices).

and getting good screen writers will help.

also do a lot of research on american cartoon and test ur pilots with actual kids rather than with adults.
I think one way american cartoons (I think blues clues and sesame street) test their pilots is to bring a group of children into a room and provide them with distracting toys. Start playing the cartoon and if the cartoon is interesting, the kids will stay glued to the tv. when they get bored by a scene, they stop watching and play with toys etc. then you can edit the episode to take out the "boring" scenes or modify it. etc.

just do a lot of research to find out how and why other cartoons have been successful.

all in all, this is great!!! we are totally behind u in this project!!!

Very welldone and very nice, i agree wit the issue of havin multiple voice overs
and again, the papa and d mama wit their advanced age ought to be grandpa and grandma, its d little little details that does the magic!
i'm an animator too, i maybe of help, if needed,
A very wonderful work and keep em comin.

peacettw:

Pls, where can i download this?

right click on the video, click copy link (depending on ur browser), go tp keepvid.com and paste that link on the space provided, then follow the instruction. betterstill if you have any other youtube downloader, you could use it.

Meanwhile, that was a great job, this should be able to explain our independence to the kids. I will also comment on other areas offline.

Thank you everyone for your comments and constructive criticism. We will take everything you say on board. Some things we can implement but others we might not be able to partly due to budgetary and time constraints. Animation is a very tedious process and unfortunately it takes longer to produce than conventional filming. The production for the episode you watched lasted about 2.5 months.
We are focused on doing several things:

Producing a series that is of benefit to Nigerian/African children and parents wherever they may be

Producing a series that educates children of other cultures about African culture

Getting a successful product out there that is of international standard that represents Africa and Nigeria well. This will help in providing employment for a few talented Nigerian animators out there.

And making sure we DELIVER

We will not be able to get it 100% the first series but if we release it, the cartoon on the DVD will be one of high standard. Actually, we can promise you 100% in one way. The production will be done 100% in Nigeria.

Here’s a report about us in MTV http://blog.mtviggy.com/2010/10/13/check-out-the-pilot-for-nigerian-cartoon-bino-and-fino/

Thank you again.

am so proud to be Nigerian big ups guys three gbosa!!!
gbosa1
gbosa!!
gbosa!!!

Big ups for taking this initiative, but needs a whole lot of improvement, graphics-wise, voice-over-wise and every other-wise

http:///WW7N

Well done guys.
Quick one, DVD's may not be the only source of income/revenue.
I think a more profitable one will be to do series for tv stations. And then to leverage on sponsors advertising children specific stuff - indomie, milo, beverages, juice drinks, etc. The list is long.
Spend a year to develop enough content to last for say 20 weeks, then work with local tv stations.
From there you can move to cable tv stations and even get exclusivity. That comes with a high premium of course.
Most important thing is that the content (story/plot) has to sell itself.
It doesnt have to start world class as per quality, but it can get there quickly.

There are also venture capitalists that are interested in stuff like this.
We may be able to talk.
PM me.

i don't think it needs the narration. all that he says , she says. it breaks the flow too much
good video quality though. keep it up!

p.s.

see cbeebies charlie and lola for tips. different voices-children's voices or what sounds like children's voices and no narration.
good luck

YOU GUYS ROCK!!! This is awesome. This truly HAS inspired me to REALLY continue my own project I abandoned. Seriously, I see this heading towards greatness. U can c d main character of my show on (c4d simplified) thread. I'll need a team first. Again, I'd like to c more and I'd definitely buy a dvd when its released.

@mayrho Thanks man!
@lekanbar Thanks for your comments. Could you elaborate of why you feel the quality is so bad?
@ Tobennae Acttually we’re having a debate about just who should sponsor Bino and Fino on the cartoon Facebook page. I agree with most of what you said. I might just take you up on that PM offer….once I know how to PM that is.
@ Jake44 Your criticism is noted & we’re looking into it. Thanks
@ ladanski. Glad we could be of help in a small way. You’ll know how tough it is to complete animation projects in Nigeria so thanks. Good luck with your project. Will take a look at it over the weekend.Glad you’ll buy the DVD. We just have to finish it! Stay tuned.

Animation is very difficult and time consuming, so I must appluad your efforts
But to make this more intresting there should not be a NARATOR because the characters are not still, but moving and also moving their mouths, so its only natural that we hear them speak, not some one speaking for them or telling us a story, You need four actors to do the voice acting, and they dont have to be kids per say, Adults can do the voice acting, and with software you change the voices to that of kids, Again the name Bino & Fino didnt do it for me, I know you are trying to capture the African market (maybe the reason you didnt give them names from a particular country or tribe) But am telling you, this will have no effect on your Market as long as the story/concept is good, what ever name (koffie, Efosa, Bola, Nkechi, Aisha) will fly. I strongly advice you look into this name-thing cos this Bino and Fino thing aint cutting it for me, Once again you guys are doing a superb job! (See my profile and Holla if u need anymore input/advice from me)

Nice work!

@ Lenny9000 Thanks for your input. The narration and voiceover style is something we just had to try out to see if it would work. It was based on a particular concept I had for the series. But having seen it 'live' so to speak we see where the issues are and how it doesn't work. But we had to do it to find out. Trial and error. We also didn't think we'd be able to do the lip synching as well. Hence relying on the narratin style. But were able to technically do that mid way through via research. We're looking into getting different actors.

As for the name,well that's staying. We can't change it at this stage and to be honest we don't want to because we've grown fond of them. Thanks again.

@Aphek Thank you.

I am impressed.Nice work.What software did you guys use?

I like the African appearance of the characters.You guys need to work on the colour quality of the cartoon(I am guessing you had to compress the file size uploaded on youtube maybe).I would suggest comparing it with other animes.Also shade the characters with a darker colour of the colours as it will give the characters a more appealing look and give a direction of lightning,right now they don't look so good with flat colours.I am guessing it will be time consuming to shade every frame but I think it will be worth it.Also,make the backgrounds more like paintings and add some effects.It makes your animations look very professional.

Once again,awesome work.Can't wait to see what you guys come up with next.

AdamuW:

We also didn't think we'd be able to do the lip synching as well.

i just want to add to that we actually knew we could do the lip sync as we have handled complex lip sync before, we just didnt think we had the time to do proper lip sync with phonemes and a basic muppet lip sync just wouldn't just cut it hence the decision to rely on narration as we then planned not to do any lip sync at all! but as mentioned we later on experimented and turns out a basic lip sync without proper phonemes was quite sufficient particularly for this style of animation(always wondered how Japanese anime's always got away with that). we are now already working on the multiple voices and we should be recording by the end of the week.

melvi:

You guys need to work on the colour quality of the cartoon(I am guessing you had to compress the file size uploaded on youtube maybe).I would suggest comparing it with other animes.Also shade the characters with a darker colour of the colours as it will give the characters a more appealing look and give a direction of lightning,right now they don't look so good with flat colours.I am guessing it will be time consuming to shade every frame but I think it will be worth it.Also,make the backgrounds more like paintings and add some effects.It makes your animations look very professional.

thank you very much melvi and yes, the video had to be degraded to a practical size particularly for nigerian internet speeds which explains the significant loss in quality and color. it is nowhere close to the H.D version we have here at the office which is what you will get on the DVD when it comes out. also we are not trying to do anime. we are going for cut out style animation look which generally is supposed to look flat. and yes it would definitely add time to the project which is why we choose this style in the first place and not even 3d which the studio is fully capable of handling. we just want to focus and deliver the DVD as promised before resources and the budget runs out and then face the same fate as countless nigerian animation attempts. when we do that and find our feet, we can maybe then give bino and fino some steroids .

@ Topup. Thank you very much.

Nice work. I like the character design, I can imagine how much work went into this. Keep it up.

This is a very marvelous job because am also working on a project like that which basically is on teaching aids to teach abstract subjects like chemistry, biology and likes. so, i know what it takes to come out with something like this. i tell you, this will take nothing less that 3 months of hardwork.

for those who feels some things about the character and concept. let me briefly tell you that in cartooning, the basic concept is to catch the audience and pass the message. the kids that the cartoon is meant for wont see most of the things you see.

I say a BIG BRAVO to you guys. you just gave me some more inspiration too.

not bad but if y'll need to compete outside nigeria you need to step it a lil up.

@ zpixel Thank you very much. Your opinion is always respected.

@ fred4alabi Thanks for the good words and support. Yes a lot of work did go into this. And a lot still has to go into it. Your own project sounds interesting. Good luck with that.

@ segzi cres Thanks. Point taken. Could you elaborate precisely on how you feel it can be improved? The most important thing we wanted to do was to release something that people could watch. The product can compete and already is competing favourably outside of Nigeria with the feedback we’re getting. But trust me when I say we are our own worst critics in the studio. We are already analysing what could have been done better and how to move things forward.

Adamu, Xothermik. . . keep the flag flying. Just like your football clip (very hilarious) this is really good. It's Naija's answer to the dominance or Dora, Diego, Wubzy, Franklin, Bill. . . et cetera. Looks like everyone is on the same page with "them  say them say", so I am sure it will be more lively with Bino and fino doing the talking. The visual style fits nicely with the concept, There is no need to start adding some needless fancy shading and BG.

I like the way it stands out and does not pretend to be what it is not, and at the same time it is not out of line, so I'll say it is unique. It will be refreshing to hear our kids chant "Go Bino/Fino go!" for a change.

@grafikdon. Thank you for your break down. It’s always good to hear your thoughts either for or against. You’ll know the issues with voiceovers as well as anyone. But we’re working on it. Yes it would be nice to hear our kids shouting Bino & Fino, Mark of Uru and O twins amongst many others!

I hope things are going well with Transtales. I was not able to catch the showing of your animations in Silvervbird Cinemas as they took it off too quickly. Congrats for getting it on screen for other people to see it.

All the big hitters have already commented on this
The major correction have already been repeated so i wont do that again, so
---Nice work fellas

Thanks Damseremie. Yes we've had a lot of feedback from people since we posted up. It has been very interesting.

It’s been a while since our last post but we’ve been hard at work. The Bino and Fino cartoon was finally released online for sale in the US and Europe territories. Here’s the website http://www.binoandfino.com/ . We listened to the feedback on our pilot episode from parents and kids. The new episodes are improved and we hope to keep making them better for kids out there.

So if you are looking for a true African educational cartoon for your children try us out and buy a copy.

We are also working hard to get the DVDs available in Nigeria.

Many thanks!