2. Engage the youthful target market with sports, music, other passions via a new model: an invitation to a dialogue offering customized rich experiences. Exemplified by The Matrix cross-platform campaign, which navigates fans across media and co-brands the campaign.

American Film Market -- Bye, Bye Cannes. Santa Monica, Here I Come

The tried and true, this is a homecoming in more ways than one for me. My first AFM? 1989... when the market took place in February. In those olden times, live-action movies were It. Then came the bust in the home video rental business, rise of the (bad straight-to-video titles) getting a second chance overseas as TV movies (luckily the cable-satellite channels were coming on strong in those days), and we all know how DVD saved home video (for a while longer than anybody would have thunk).

Nowadays, even the movie business is teaming with hot young companies that have sexy New Media names (at least at the AFM seminars, not really in the Loews Hotel suites). You will find there were animated feature films being sold at the American Film Market for the past couple of years -- thanks to the Academy's Best Animated Feature Film eligibility rules change.

For independent animation producers and sellers, DTV (Direct-To-Video) animation titles have a chance if niche and genre (or huge studio releases domestically!); otherwise, stay far, far away from the AFM in Santa Monica (even if you live and work in L.A.). Instead, save up your dollars for next year's (overseas) animation festivals. Safe travels to you all.

Article contributor: Anja Zillich of Kidz Consulting, Munich, Germany.

Catherine Branscome established Branscome International in 1999 to act primarily as a specialty sales agency on behalf of independent animators and animation studios. Between deal-making trips and attending markets, Catherine and her associates are finalizing plans for the 2008 launch of a new digital production and distribution company, Go For It Entertainment.