• Joined: September 20, 2021

Topic: Making money on YouTube & Tik Tok

Hey,

What do you think about making money on YouTube and Tik Tok from posting brickfilms?

Are top producers of brickfilms making hundred of thousands of dollars per year from YouTube and Tik Tok?

If this is the case, producing brickfilms can become for many of us the main job.

What do you think?

Do you know how much are people doing on YouTube and Tik Tok with brickfilms?

I don’t want names, I am just curious about the amounts of money they make per month or year.

I am considering doing brickfilms as a main job / activity, replacing my business with a hobby that could actually produce serious money.

I hope that I am not wrong. mini/smile

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Re: Making money on YouTube & Tik Tok

Youtube can, I have no idea about Tik Tok, but there's not many of them, it's not easy, and it's better to just do all around stop-motion and get commissions.

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Re: Making money on YouTube & Tik Tok

As a professional animator, I can only speak from my own experience.

What do you think about making money on YouTube and Tik Tok from posting brickfilms?
There are much easier ways to generate the level of content output needed to effectively reach an audience. Knowing how to market and reach a consistent follower base are key in monetization. Case in point would be Michael Hickox whose animations are uninspired and unoriginal (ahem*ripoff) yet he knows how to work the algorithms to get tons of views from toddlers who have yet to develop discerning taste.

Are top producers of brickfilms making hundred of thousands of dollars per year from YouTube and Tik Tok?
No, brickfilm producers who are making a modest living off of the medium are doing so by working hard to bid on official Lego projects (which are uncredited) and projects for studios such as Disney and Warner Bros who want content for their IPs which happen to have a large Lego presence, such as Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, DC, etc. The business end of these kind of negotiations are a full time job in and of themselves, and involve hiring experienced professionals in the fields not only of stopmo, but cinematography and lighting, visual effects, voice actors, etc. If you are the studio head, get ready to not do nearly as much creative work as you would like.

If this is the case, producing brickfilms can become for many of us the main job.
It's not the case.

What do you think?
I think you should totally animate, but for the love of the craft and the process, and where that takes you as a human being. That is rewarding in and of itself, and yet it could be a great gateway to career growth. Brickfilming was definitely a place where I honed my craft and built my reel and gain some credibility as an artist. It ultimately helped lead me to more jobs and opporunities in my career. However, it is not a get-rich-quick scheme by any means.

Do you know how much are people doing on YouTube and Tik Tok with brickfilms?
Supplemental bonus income to their day job, and perhaps getting free sets from Lego with the expectation that you will review the sets, animate with them, and generally give visibility to their project.

I don’t want names, I am just curious about the amounts of money they make per month or year.
I do want names so I can send them my reel mini/sunnies

I am considering doing brickfilms as a main job / activity, replacing my business with a hobby that could actually produce serious money.
If you are in brickfilming for money, you are in it for the wrong reasons. Passion for what you do, dedication to the craft, and seeking personal growth as an artist should be your goals.

I hope that I am not wrong. mini/smile
I hope that you are not discouraged, but dive into animation with your whole heart and soul. It's a fantastic pastime, and it is always far more rewarding to create than to consume TV, video games, etc.

Enjoy!
-Tof

[edited for formatting/spelling]

Last edited by thistof (January 12, 2022 (02:30am))

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  • Joined: September 20, 2021

Re: Making money on YouTube & Tik Tok

Thank you for your detailed answer, this is exactly want I wanted to get from this forum. mini/smile

I am waiting also for other opinions.

To better explain the questions of the topic, I will tell you a short story.

Some time ago, I found out that I want to have a YouTube channel and to make good money out of it, like many guys from the internet.

I wanted to make videos in which I talk about online marketing.

But I didn’t make it as I discovered Lego stop motion animations and I got in love with them.

And I said to myself, why shouldn’t I combine the 2, Lego stop motion animations and YouTube?

I would combine a hobby with making money and owing a YouTube channel that I always wanted.

Looking on YouTube, I saw quite a few Lego stop motion animations that have millions or tens of millions of view. Some of them got all the views in 1 year or less.

I thought that these guys make for sure some money.

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Re: Making money on YouTube & Tik Tok

I could be wrong of course, and I definitely encourage you to follow your passions and create something awesome out of love. The word passion comes from the Latin word for suffering, which implies blood, sweat, and tears going into our labours of love.

It sounds like you have an interest in and understanding of marketing. That will definitely come in handy if it helps you understand the marketing side of monetizing online content. And sharing that knowledge might be something people really want to know about, so don't discount that idea while still pursuing animation. Talking about a subject you love and understand is also much less time consuming than animating, and unlike animation, is more easily adjusted to different mediums such as video, audio podcasts, etc.

Do what you love, do what only you can do, and do it to the best of your ability. Sincerely all the best to your endeavours!

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  • BertL
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Re: Making money on YouTube & Tik Tok

It's a bit rambly but I think I got my points out, lol.

I dunno if I'm too qualified to speak on this subject matter as I've never gone viral on YouTube or tried to make money off of brickfilming, but I've been around since before YouTube so I hope that gives me at least some on-the-sidelines experience for this.

Short-form content like brickfilms isn't very suitable for ad revenue. There's a reason YouTube videos have been shifting towards long-form content over the years: there is an audience for it, but also it enables you to show more ads meaning more revenue.

As I'm sure you know, brickfilms are very time-costly and labor-intensive to make: hours and hours of work for a video that might only be a couple of minutes long. This is why brickfilms tend to be on the shorter side. Sure, there are exceptions like starwarsstudio100, who's sitting on 185k subscribers at the moment. He mostly makes longer form brickfilms that get millions of views over time. But even then it's a trade off: he can release a video that's 30 or 50 minutes long, but it'll take him a year to create it.

I think it's safe to assume that your audience is primarily going to be children and teenagers, a demographic that tends not to have much disposable income. "Off-YouTube" sources of revenue, like Patreon or merchandising, will likely not be very viable. That means that most of your income will need to come from ad revenue, which is very dependent on how many views you're getting (and even then the amount of money you will actually make from it varies wildly). Perhaps you'll be able to find sponsors, but I'm not sure how you would tie that into the content.

So the primary number you'll be looking at is viewership. That means it's important to grow and sustain an audience. That's a tricky part, and a bit of a lottery. Perhaps you're very good at "playing the YouTube game" and find the perfect formula to play the algorithm and get yourself recommended to tens of thousands of viewers on a daily basis, I dunno. That's not exactly my area of expertise.

Long story short: it's not impossible, but it is improbable, maybe? I'm very skeptical that LEGO stop motion is going to give you enough content and reliable viewership to make a job out of it, if you even manage to become big at all.

EDIT: I realized I forgot some other sources. I'm not sure how reliable this source is, but here's a YouTube Money calculator. Assuming the standard numbers in there are correct, an average viewership of 10,000 viewers a day (which equals 3.5 million views over a year) would net you (on average) some $700 per month. With the amount of work and hours you need to put in before you would even get to those numbers, that hardly seems worth it as a business venture.

Last edited by BertL (January 14, 2022 (12:51pm))

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  • Joined: January 18, 2022

Re: Making money on YouTube & Tik Tok

FlyingDragon wrote:

Thank you for your detailed answer, this is exactly want I wanted to get from this forum. mini/smile

I am waiting also for other opinions.

To better explain the questions of the topic, I will tell you a short story.

Some time ago, I found out that I want to have a YouTube channel and to make good money out of it, like many guys from the internet.

I wanted to make videos in which I talk about online marketing.

But I didn’t make it as I discovered Lego stop motion animations and I got in love with them.

And I said to myself, why shouldn’t I combine the 2, Lego stop motion animations and YouTube?

I would combine a hobby with making money and owing a YouTube channel that I always wanted.

Looking on YouTube, I saw quite a few Lego stop motion animations that have millions or tens of millions of view. Some of them got all the views in 1 year or less.

I thought that these guys make for sure some money.


With what your saying about the YouTube thing, to make money off of stop motions can be done, look up lego stop motions and you’ll see a bunch of people who’ve made it work. Now it’s still hard as with any job especially on YouTube but I believe if you market yourself and find the audience you can make a steady living or at least generate an income off of it.

: D