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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.8 - NOVEMBER 2000
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MIPCOM 2000: A Report from the Front StarToons should have done MIPCOM years ago. The contacts were fantastic. However, there’s one thing that disturbed me about it -- which really just shows why I'm an animator and not a suit -- is the fact that in all our meetings with the wheeler-dealers, the topic of "entertainment excellence" or "quality animation production" NEVER came up. These words weren't in the running vocabulary of the people there. Instead, they talk about "co-production," "back-end," "percentages" and "trade agreements." Yeah, money makes the world go 'round, but if the shows suck, what's the point? And there are so many "great deals" made for crappy, poorly executed animation material. The trend nowadays is towards the cheapest crap the market will bear. So you can imagine that as an animator with a track record, I felt somewhat out of place. Our properties -- Tuna Sammich and M7 -- were tremendously well received there in Cannes. To make them happen, we'll need to identify a U.S. distributor. It looks as though we can pretty well get worldwide distribution from the people we met there, but to make it financially feasible -- at least for a "little guy" like StarToons -- we need this to air on American TV. What impressed me most, while I would sit there on my bed at night flipping through French TV shows, was how much American entertainment they use. They just dub 'em over in French, but they're our shows. Why? Because entertainment is one of the things America does best! This country needs to wake up and realize that if they give away all their entertainment production to Canada and other countries, there just ain't gonna be much left for us to offer...besides corn. Being a good Chicago boy, I know all about grain, OK? Jon McClenahan, Animation Director MIPCOM 2000 was RDAStudio's first to Cannes but we did have some personal experience from attending its sister show for the music industry (MIDEM) on several previous occasions. The show format is almost the same and the name of the game is still access. This year, we had great luck indeed in setting up meetings, both with people whom we wanted to see and with the people who expressed interest in meeting with us. Ironically, since we are a Canadian studio and distributor ourselves, our most productive meetings may turn out to be the ones we had with other Canadian companies and broadcasters, such as Teletoon, Funbag and Cochran Entertainment. Since our stock in trade happens to be Flash animation, we noted the welcome presence of new media companies such as Icebox and Wildbrain. While much is still being said these days about the technical convergence of TV and the Net, for those of us actually working in new media, the content convergence is right here and right now. Websites are no longer relegated to just being "about the TV show." Rather, the Net is emerging as the pivot player in multi-platform production. At MIPCOM, we were showing a retro-future series based on Dean Motter's Electropolis. The print rights have already gone to Image Comics in the U.S. and our studio is producing the Internet Flash series, primarily to pre-build a fan audience, prior to print publication next May. This has further led to a TV co-production and animation broadcast deal that now gives us a "triple crown" across all three media. We are very excited about the cross-platform synergies this opens up for the property and see this as becoming the viable business model for the near future. Ever since we first started producing content for POP.com, people kept asking us, "How do you make money with content on the Internet?" We now believe that the answer is a hybrid media model that combines the strengths of several media into one. TV isn't going to the Internet "as is" and the Web is never going to succeed on TV, at least not in its present form. We now believe that what these two industries both are amounts to being reluctant parents of a bastard offspring, namely one labeled as "new media," itself just a child which is still trying to find its way in the economic world. MIPCOM 2000 taught us that we are not alone. There now exists a real economic potential to cross-pollinate TV broadcast territories with Internet globalization. In many ways, the future has arrived. Last but not least, MIPCOM provided us with access to people who have even further access and people who enjoy connecting like minds and compatible projects. At the top of our "best citizen of show" list would have to be Marie-Line Petrequin and the crew at Igel Media. She personally went out of her way to connect us and we are forever in her debt. All that's left to do now is to enter into a deal directly with each other, and that ball is currently in their court. All in all, "Great show, quality attendance, will be back next year." Robert Leth, Vice President and General Manager This was my first experience at MIPCOM and I was not there just as VirtualMagic Animation, a service provider of digital ink & paint looking for work, but with a new development for children's television. I was expecting to compare this experience with my trips to NAPTE. Each is an international marketplace where deals are struck. But MIPCOM, unlike NATPE, is very structured and focused. At MIPCOM it is mandatory to have appointments to meet with anyone. They even suggest it strongly in their registration package. Getting appointments prior to the show with most of those we wanted to was fairly easy. Everyone goes by the appointment sheet. If you do bump into someone on the floor, they're running to the next meeting. The oddest part of the show was how quiet the floor was. I was fully prepared to be blasted at by hawking and noise and I expected to be hoarse after the first day. During the market, I never felt that I had to yell above the madding crowd, except for these few occasions at parties and on the street. And many of the booths are closed during lunch. What a civil way to attend a show and do business! As development virgins, this makes for a great business experience. VirtualMagic is a co-production partner with Robert Leonard and Baby Nessie Entertainment, LLC for an animated series, Baby Nessie. We were there looking for distribution, production and financing partners. The nice part of having appointments was having the full attention of the individual you were pitching to. In 20 minutes you could tell your story and hear their story. After awhile, however, it all started to run together and the pitch seemed scripted, but the opportunity to get an ear and interest in the series in this manner was ideal. Baby Nessie, an endearing tale of a baby Loch Ness Monster, did get a lot of interest. During the market, we were able to get meetings based on our presentation material and after the show we have received several positive follow up inquiries from distributors. We would have never been able to present this property to so many worldwide in this concentrated period of time. MIPCOM does attract the world. I was amazed by the amount of animation that was being featured. My low estimate is 50% of the exhibitors had some form of animated entertainment available for sale. The acceptance of animation was very high. I was not surprised to see that everyone was very accepting of a co-production deal and encouraged the assembling of the right partners for a project. In some cases, they suggested partners to pursue. In a couple of cases we could hear a note of chagrin from those who have always been able to do the whole deal, but are now resigned to the multi-tiered business plan. In our case, everyone we met (about 30 companies) seemed sincere in wanting to see this project succeed. I hope that they were this kind to all, but secretly wish that these good feelings were a result of our Baby Nessie project! Next year, I hope to be in Cannes with a distribution partner to see the show sell. Jan Nagel, Director of Business Development and Marketing
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