Loading...Despite the fact that I’m subscribed to almost 100 channels, watched many more, showcased 51 channels, and featured 364 videos on this website, I’m continually surprised when I come across more amazing and high-quality content creators. About a week ago, I discovered the channel kaptainkristian and was immediately blown away by the wonderful animation and interesting content. The channel is not very old, with only 5 videos and 60,000 subscribers, although I can easily see it gaining many more over time.
Kaptainkristain creates 5-10 minute video essays on the subject of film, TV, comics, and most importantly, storytelling. As I said earlier, the channel currently only has 5 videos, so we can’t really judge the direction the channel will go in this early. But I have to say, it seems like the creators behind the channel know what they’re doing. The aesthetic is well-planned, the videos are all of the same style and topic, and the branding is great. It’s not easy to get over 1 million views in around 2 months, but kaptainkristain managed to do just that. The first five videos on the channel are all outstanding, and I’d bet their future videos will keep up the quality.
They discuss, in depth, an interesting aspect of some specific project in any medium of storytelling, from the costumes of X-Men to the character development techniques of Pixar, which happens to also be the today’s featured video above. Titled “Pixar – What Makes A Story Relatable“, the video talks about how Pixar has managed to make so many great movies full of interesting characters and plotlines. Along with fantastic animation and general design, the video is also very insightful, explaining why Pixar is so good in a way I certainly never thought about before. It talks about how villains in other movies, specifically old Disney movies, tend to sometimes be one-dimensional and don’t really have a great motive for their evilness (or at least motives that were originally fleshed out but were over-simplified in the animation process). Pixar creates fun, relatable, and more importantly realistic characters, who when put in the situations thought up by Pixar writers can make for some great films.
All in all, the video is a great video essay on Pixar’s character development techniques, just as kaptainkristain’s third video is a great video essay on the history and importance (to the franchise) of X-Men costumes, and the other three videos are a great video essay on their respective topics. The channel checks out on all the “good video essay channel” bullet points: interesting topics, well researched, great storytelling, outstanding animation and graphics. There are not many channels on YouTube that can make in-depth stories about this TV show or that comic strip interesting just by itself, and I can easily say that for me, kaptainkristain is one of them.