Courtesy of Cartoon Movie 2003.

Having one good idea doesn’t necessarily lead to two — not all sequels succeed!

With the success of Cartoon Forum, the exclusive market for European producers and the key buyers from European broadcasting, CARTOON (the Brussels based organization charged with developing animation produced in Europe) was keen to extend the idea to animated features. The purpose is to ease the path of European producers to obtain financing for features. Unless backed by an American studio, no European animated feature is likely to find financing from one source. Some films list as many as 20 sources of finance in their contractual credits. It is considered lucky — or successful — if a producer can limit their financial partners to less than five. An inevitable result is that co-productions are a key element in financing European animated features, that is collaborations with two or more studios from different countries. Thankfully this is something animation production is well able to handle.

So, very tentatively, the first Cartoon Movie was held in 1999 at the Babelsberg studios in Potsdam near Berlin, Germany. The intention was to follow the format of the successful Forums very closely, but it was quickly realized that movies are completely different creatures, requiring an entirely different approach to their development and financing.

This year, Cartoon Movie presented seven finished features and 30 development projects. Courtesy of Cartoon Movie 2003.

After five years, CARTOON believes it has just about got the format right: separate presentations for features at the concept stage (equivalent to a ‘first toe in the water’ pitch), the opportunity to give more detailed presentations for films already in development, as well as opportunities to present films already in production (and therefore presumably financed). Finally there are exclusive screenings of completed films.

The figures, at least, suggest CARTOON timed its new presentation well. From the two completed animated movies (from all of Europe) screened in 1999, this has increased to six features in 2002 and seven features in March 2003.

The most recent Cartoon Movie had a definitely more business-like air to its proceedings. Whilst there were undoubtedly projects that should not have got even as far as the concept stage, most new feature ideas were well developed, with some expensive and reasonably exciting or comic trailers. More importantly, there were some serious financiers present, and the whole three-day event involved extensive rounds of consultations and meetings.