More than 140 European animation producers gathered for the three-day forum on the economic reality of making a theatrical feature film in animation. All images courtesy of Cartoon.

The massive increase in European animated feature film production over recent years has opened the doors to a whole new strand of the European Union Cartoon program’s Cartoon Masters professional training program. Following on from the success of Cartoon Movie — its annual animated feature pitching market in Potsdam — the new event kicked off for the first time in late October in the Bavarian city of Munich.

And as the first of its kind, it was already breaking records on the first morning — with a staggering 140 animation producers from all over Europe signing up for the inside story on feature financing. The program took in presentations from successful producers, distributors, lawyers and related practitioners from Europe, the USA and Asia.

Three days of solid information got off to a good start with an overview of the sector from Tim Westcott — currently senior analyst with Screen Digest in London and previously a member of the European Audiovisual Observatory in Strasbourg. His previous publications include European Feature Animation (for Cartoon) and The Business of Children’s Television (for Screen Digest).

Tim Westcott, with Screen Digest, talked about the vast difference in numbers between U.S. and European releases.

Westcott pointed out that one of the main goals of the next phase of the European Union’s MEDIA program (currently under discussion prior to implementation in 2007) will be to double the penetration of European films outside their country of origin — partly by setting up new pan-European distribution structures. So there’s likely to be a great deal of financial support for distribution of up-coming movies. And by the look of things, they’re going to need it!

Sure enough, there are more animated features being produced in Europe than ever before — 15 had a theatrical release last year — but they are mostly made on a low budget and enjoy only limited distribution. The only major exception to this rule in recent years was Aardman Animations’ Chicken Run — but this was very much a DreamWorks movie and so enjoyed all the advantages of the backing of a major U.S. studio.

Westcott gave a dramatic indication of the difference in scale between successful American and European movies — and of the mountain that still has to be climbed by European producers. Shrek 2 had an estimated production budget of $70m, took $438m at the U.S. box office plus $80m in the U.K. and $34m each in Germany and Spain — and Shrek has already chalked up more than 5.5m DVD sales. Contrast that with one of the biggest European success stories — Kirikou and the Sorceress. The budget was €3.8m, with a gross European box office of €6m, with 10,000 DVDs and 300,000 VHS sales in France. That’s quite a difference in scale.

Consultant Catherine Winder added that the three essential elements for any feature were concept, character and story. Now that might seem like a straightforward enough recipe — but the truth is that so many European offerings have previously been let down by poor scripts. That has to change if there is to be any hope for the future.