Testing toons

Cartoon Forum’s relaxed atmosphere and creative energy means it will always be a favourite in the calendar of buyers from around the world, but is it in danger of giving all the limelight to France? Nico Franks reports.

Cartoon Forum

An Air France strike may have scuppered Netflix’s efforts to attend Cartoon Forum for the first time, but a number of digital buyers including Amazon Studios still managed to make their debuts at the European pitching bonanza this week.

Both US video-on-demand (VoD) platforms have European productions in their sights, with Amazon recently commissioning five new children’s pilots from companies including Ireland’s Brown Bag Films and Zodiak Kids-owned UK prodco The Foundation in August.

Meanwhile, Netflix this week announced a partnership with Italy’s Rainbow Studios to produce Winx Club WOW: World of Winx, a spin-off series to the popular girl-skewing franchise, the latest in a spate of children’s commissions from the US streamer in the past 12 months.

The first of two new seasons of the show will be available exclusively in all Netflix territories, including France and Germany, by early 2016, with the second following in the autumn.

There’s long been hope that VoD platforms could be just the tonic to help the toon industry finally shake off the economic hangover that it’s been nursing ever since the financial crisis.

One knock-on effect of the economic downturn in Europe has been that Cartoon Forum, which previously hopped to unexpected locations with each edition, has been held in Toulouse for the past three years.

The French city has many charms, but the news that event organiser Cartoon is planning to hold the pitching event here again for the next three years provoked a mixed response from attendees.

Previous editions have been held in places as far flung as the Greek island of Syros, Sopot in Poland, Rogaland in Norway, or Inverness in Scotland and there was a palpable sense this year that attendees were pining for the excitement felt previously on the final day of Forum, when they would eagerly await the announcement of the next year’s location.

My Dream Job

But the huge financial strain of putting on such a large event in a new location each year takes its toll and the event organisers have to be realistic. “I know that Toulouse would like us to stay here. For me, the place works perfectly,” says Marc Vandeweyer, general director at Cartoon.

The fact that France yet again had the most projects being pitched at the event has left some feeling that Forum has become more about celebrating the French rather than the European toon industry.

Tellingly, all three winners of the Cartoon Tributes, which are voted for by the Forum attendees, were French companies: Canal+ (broadcaster of the year), Mediatoon Distribution (investor/distributor of the year) and Les Films de l’Arlequin (producer of the year).

“The only thing to be careful about is to be sure to bring all the Europeans and ensure that it doesn’t become a French event. That’s my goal and it won’t become a French market,” assures Vandeweyer.

The event is still the best place to get a taste for European animation and this year producers were as keen as ever to elaborate on their plans to make more than just a TV show, with many projects being prepped from the off to debut on the web or via apps.

My Dream Job (140×3′), for example, is a customizable cartoon from Belgium’s Contentinuum that uses an app to place real pictures on the faces of its characters, and Belgian broadcaster RTBF has agreed to come on board the show, its creator, Alexandre Touret told C21 in Toulouse.

VoD firms commissioning original content also gives hope to producers with adult animation series on their slate, the high-production cost and niche appeal of which may have left them unloved by traditional broadcasters unwilling to take the risk on them.

Scribe

Among the older-skewing shows being pitched at Cartoon Forum was Scribe (6×22′), a smart, vulgar and painfully funny series set in Dublin with characters that include heroin addicts and a lead who has muscular dystrophy.

From Dublin-based Wiggleywoo, its scruffy, hand drawn-style of animation is consistent with the prodco’s previous preschool output, however its filthy dialogue couldn’t be more different.

Former content chief at Teletoon Canada Alan Gregg, who is spearheading Mercury Filmworks’ push into Europe with a soon-to-launch Irish animation studio and who was making his first appearance at Cartoon Forum, picked out Scribe as a series he particularly enjoyed discovering in Toulouse.

Previously, leaving Forum pitches for edgy series daring to do things a little differently has been bittersweet due to the likelihood that you would never hear about them again. VoD buyers’ eagerness to make eye-catching commissions, however, now gives them a fighting chance of getting made.

“It remains challenging for producers to find the financing they need to get a primetime animated show together, because they do work out generally a lot more expensive than kids animation. But there are more buyers in the market for it now than there used to be,” Gregg said.

Having more buyers on the scene means producers certainly have something to toast to on the final day of Forum.