The Smurfs booth at MIPCOM `97, on the wall is a unique catch phrase, "The World's Greatest Blue Characters." Photo by Alisa Anderson.

Reed Midem is Always a Winner
The one thing all participants readily agreed upon was that we were all in the wrong business - that MIP and MIPCOM's organizer, Reed Midem, was the only company guaranteed to make a huge profit. The smallest booth cost $7,000 for the five days, and many participants could be heard grousing that in order to obtain a prime location it was "suggested" that they place a full page advertisement in the show's daily magazine, MIPCOM News. The owner of one small European company estimates it costs him more than $50,000 to send three executives to staff a modest booth. He has to repeat the entire process, and price, again for MIP, the equivalent Spring show also held in Cannes.

But Gary Lico of Cable Ready, a U.S. distributor of non-fiction programs, argued that despite the higher cost, MIP and MIPCOM are "much more democratic" than NATPE, the U.S. television trade show held each January. Smaller companies at NATPE are dwarfed by the giant booths of Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney, and the like, which often include lavish buffets and open bars. However in Cannes, the entire convention center, aptly named the Palais, is comparatively tiny, with small ceilings and cramped spaces even for the largest of studios.

MIPCOM Junior
Some production companies find it economical to forego MIPCOM altogether and participate only in MIPCOM Jr., a two-day children's screening event that precedes the main show. That's what Kratky Film, the Czech Republic's esteemed animation studio decided to do. John Riley, the studio's head of international sales, says it was well worth it. "For $2,000 we were able to offer several projects we have in development to buyers around the world," he explained. "Viewers check out the tapes by scanning their badge's bar code, so we got a list of fifty potential buyers. Hey, Haim Saban himself watched our Studio's presentation cassette."

Maxi Cat, from Rembrandt Films' Maxi Cat and Friends series, created by Adam Snyder, is being distributed through the Dutch company, Palm Plus Productions. © 1997 Zagreb Film/Rembrandt Films.

A record 330 buyers watched 622 titles in more than 9,000 individual screenings at this year's MIPCOM Junior, and more than half were animation. Participation was by no means restricted to the smaller companies. The two most frequently screened programs were Columbia TriStar's Men in Black and Film Roman's The Blues Brothers Animated Series.

So, what's the lesson for the small independent company? You can't compete with Rugrats and don't even try to compete with the raft of second tier animation. Instead, find or create something unique -- then shamelessly bend the ear of everyone you meet, can spill a drink on, or overhear saying the word, "animation." No one has heard of Rembrandt Films, but when I tell buyers that I am the exclusive distributor of all 600 films from the legendary Zagreb Film animation studio, many of them want to sit down and talk. Equally important, of course, is to partner with a distributor who has a presence on the floor of MIPCOM and MIP and who shares your enthusiasm for your product.

These are the only ways I can think of to stand out, even in a small way, in an always competitive, sometimes intimidating, standing room-only crowd.

Adam Snyder is President of Rembrandt Films, producer of Nudnik and Friends, distributed by Sunbow Entertainment, and several other series distributed by Palm Plus Productions, including classic animation from Zagreb Film and the Sofia Animation Studio, which are packaged into two thirteen part series, Maxicat and Friends and Three Fools and Friends respectively. This was his second MIPCOM.