It could be that in the next 25 years or so, we'll finally be able to beam ourselves around the world, to the next market or festival we think we should be attending. But while I wait for Second Life markets to begin, I and my fellow traditional media-market shleppers are like concentric groups following a traveling circus. Making deals is an ongoing process and, each year, we keep hopping and whirling around different venues in faraway lands. Buyers, producers and sellers, we're all jazzed and dazed at the same time, seeing the same faces two, three or even more times a year.
I've decided to survive by picking a genre that clearly defines and narrows down what is a Must-Attend for me, and what's OK to skip. After nearly 15 (gulp!) years in the film side of the Business as a live-action (real movies) sales agent/distributor, I finally chose animation (finally found my One True Love in the media biz) about seven years ago. Big-name movie stars never wowed me, yet it was exciting to be part of a sales company that distributed Cannes Festival winners and to have Bob and Harvey (yes, both!) attend our festival/market cocktail parties.
But ever since I made the Big Change, I've been soooooooo happy. Now I am gleefully amongst the ranks of the meek who should inherit the earth (some have already started that inheritance--think Pixar). Albeit a nano-bit smaller, my company's making respectable headway on behalf of a wide range of indies like Bill Plympton and corporate powerhouses of animation-generation, such as Jetix Europe.
Here then is a glimpse into the (exciting) world of licensing, distribution and financing/packaging.
While in Cannes... The smartest television buyers (or those with '07 budgets still left to spend) hide out and do intense, focused work, which benefits them multiple ways, since they have a great reason for dodging sellers and producers who'd rather talk to them about their shows than let them simply watch and then pursue the seller. But be prepared, the show concept/series alone may not be enough, they'll want to know all about your cross-platform plans and interactive elements, how will the audience participate, and some networks want you to give them your show for no license fee and want to participate in the Merchandising and Licensing Revenues too. So, yes, the 50+ screening cubicles alone don't a MIPCOM Junior make. And, to be fair, 99.98% of the buyers sincerely care first and foremost about the quality of the program and how well it entertains and engages -- you're in the finalist category when and if they start asking about the topic of revenue-sharing.
MIPCOM Junior and MIPCOM (October 7, 8 and 9, 10, 11 and 12)
The "Junior" part of this fall market means two things: it's very tiny when compared to the grandpappy bear called MIPCOM (about 1,000 Juniors, versus about 12,000+ MIPCOM-ers), and it's the microcosmic universe dedicated to kids programming. There are constant meetings, running-intos, and a very well-organized screening library with movies, episodes, shorts -- an incredible range of (mostly) animation content from all corners.
The Junior temporary compound is set up at the tres chic Carlton Hotel in Cannes, where there are guarded coffee areas and where our badges allow us to enter the sessions where senior executives and a few wealthy independents entertain and enlighten the Junior participants. The Junior setting is rife with opportunities to further coproduction discussions or deals that could have started elsewhere in France (i.e., Annecy) in June this year, or even earlier, in Cannes at MIPTV, in April.
Yes, there are a lot of steps and months from pitch to signed deal, and everybody in the kids' business side of this business should be honored annually with statuettes for their tenacity. (I remember when Brian Lacey first told me it took him three years of pushing Pokemon until it became an overnight success -- who knew Brian recieved multiple rejections from major broadcasters until the ratings country-by-country started to swell out of control?)
The Main Market: MIPCOM Junior Segues into MIPCOM Mainstream traditional media and distribution have always morphed. The stronger global markets push us and pull us with their own programming content. Mobile, interactive, social-networking, virtual worlds, the new celebrity is ubiquity and both MIPCOMs got more-than-it-all goin' on!
MIPCOM's Reed Midem Organization has become super-adept at attracting and programming (and securing advertising and booth rental dollars from) the West, and now the East is coming onto our industry's center stage as well, with "Focus on India" and more sessions/events, cocktails, lunches, etc. And there are new ceremonies about fun New Media and Digital Content, with newly created awards (Mobile Content Awards MIPCOM for the second year). We're all excited about the New Media this time around, since the first Internet boom came too early. So now is the right time to award excellence in digital/mobile content.
Here's what you may have wanted to jot down if you had been at some of these sessions (consider the below a MIPCOM Notes Sampler Menu):
TV Broadcasters Tell Us What They (Really) Want
ABC Australia is looking for:
Canal J, France is looking for: ZDF, Germany is looking for: Industry Trends (from a session on Licensing)
Big question -- How to engage and entertain today's "young generation"?
Food and Health-Related Programming
A lot of changes everywhere. Eating habits of kids are different, combined with changing concerns of parents.
Nothing Changes Too Radically, No Matter What You Read, See or Hear (or Immerse Yourself In)
Kids Shows Must Have: For different territories (countries, cultures), it is a case-by-case scenario.
(The Re-Introduction of) Classical Brands
- Informal research: talking with people to find out which brand has potential for a re-launch
- Looking for multi-platform content
- Strategic partners?
- Develop limited products: Grow slowly and organically
- Time schedule: up to 30 months
- high awareness of parents
- people are still passionate about the brand
- on Cartoon Network since 1990
- significant TV presence
- hot kids music market
- comedy aspect: kids still loves the jokes
- 125 comedy shorts
- 15 soaps
- Music video
- CD/DVD
- Records by Universal
Digital Kids MIPCOM: Done, But Not Dusted.
- CBeebies: Target group: 3 to 6 years
- CBBC: 6 to 12 years
Next Up: American Film Market (October 31-November 7)
You're sure to get the gist from trades and blogs -- our global markets are constantly evolving. I tell my clients, what was true six months ago is likely to have changed. Even those of us who are most actively in the marketplace realize that we cannot let ourselves rest between pitches, and so we pull out our notepads and -- like schoolgirls and boys -- jot down notes and do the grown-up thing of making to-do lists based on learning just what everybody else is doing in the new digital space, the cross-platform, mobile/interactive texting world (games are really big now too?).
Les Moonves, keynote speaker for MIPCOM, sums up everything about the global television/media business quite effectively:
1. Content is (still) king... for all platforms
2. New media helps to expand audience rather than hurt
3. Expansion and Diversification (Internet is Queen to Content King?)
In May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm, a U.K.-based Internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It is the world's largest social music platform, with over 20 million active users based in more than 232 countries. Using a unique music recommendation system known as "Audioscrobbler," Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations or on the user's computer or portable music device. This information is transferred to Last.fm's database ("Scrobbled") via a plugin installed into the user's music player. The profile data is displayed on a personal web page. The site offers numerous social networking features and can recommend and play artists similar to the user's favorites. CBS is looking at expanding Last.fm's social network to include film, TV, news, etc.
Today's Hottest Prospects -- Consumers Are Gods if Content is King
Yahoo takes the content of their brand advertisers and reuses it by forwarding/sharing on MySpace, blogs, etc. to extend their reach dramatically
Branded Entertainment: The Brand, the Producer and the Agency
1. Marketing Director for PepsiCo International says the "consumer" model is broken due to:
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 [8] 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.
Links:
[1] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/13670
[2] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/13671
[3] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/13672
[4] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/13673
[5] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/13674
[6] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/13675
[7] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/13676
[8] http://www.branscomeinternational.com/