Dotcomix: Capturing Animated Motion On The Net

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.03 - JUNE 2000

Dotcomix: Capturing Animated Motion On The Net
(continued from page 3)

"Honey, let’s stay home tonight and get Dotcomixed…" © Protozoa, Inc.

Capturing Transmedia Appeal
Danielson is enthusiastic about converting more of their original properties into transmedia action and strategizing their performance into solid and repeatable business models. He also refers to the Duke campaign as a powerful example of getting their shows "in multiple mediums that help to drive traffic back to the site and create a broader interest on a national level that you can’t do as a micro-site on the Web." Adding to that, deGraf states, "The biggest challenge is spreading out -- producing more but without diluting it and actually, the other part that I am really excited about is going up a level in our production quality. Up until now its been fast-and-furious just to get as much up there as we can and now we feel like we have a large enough volume that we can be more selective. We can take longer writing our stuff and we can filter out shows that don’t work as well so that the overall density of really funny stuff is much higher."

Widening The Reach
Danielson feels the international expansion of dot-com animation is definitely the next big opening. "There’s so much going on right now in terms of the multi-channel world," he states. "We’ve already formed a great strategic relationship up in Canada with Rogers Communications and we see a lot of opportunity in Europe and in South America and Asia." DotComix shows are easily re-purposed into different languages and production of localized tracks is now in the center of on-going work. "When I sit here and think about what we could be doing in a couple of years in terms of how broad our reach could be," he muses, "it’s very exciting."

"If it’s character you want, we’ve got lots of that!" © Protozoa, Inc.

deGraf is also highly motivated by the scope of today’s Internet audience. "We’re broadcasting worldwide right now, and our potential audience is about as big as The Cartoon Network’s." He says, "We definitely want to go into more interactivity and more community based stuff. We’ve now got the resources to actually get programming out to that audience so to me, what will be exciting is building it, getting well known, having people appreciate what we do, getting the feedback and making a real business out of it." He realizes the importance of garnering strong name recognition for themselves and believes that, "ultimately, it really comes down to voice and, you know, who we are and what we decide to produce, what the writing is. It’s not so much that we’re better than anybody else, we’re just different. And I think that’s where the real success will be -- the long-term success depends on having a good voice and telling stories that people want to hear."

This assorted mix of personalities whipping up a spectrum of distinctive transmedia fare will surely bring a future filled with entertaining productions at the proliferating DotComix’ dot-com.

Lee Dannacher is an animation producer/sound track director of over 300 half hours of television films, as well as numerous network and video holiday specials. Currently based in New York, she is freelancing in audio, project development and new media productions.

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