What is the biggest issue facing the animation industry?
Representation and diversity are a big challenge for the animation industry. Diversity is hugely important in creative projects and endeavours; including a wide range of voices is vital to creating innovative content. As an industry, we need to work harder than ever to ensure that opportunities are available to everyone.
What is your company doing in response to this?
LoveLove Films runs a new talent placement scheme for a range of diverse students. Each year, we usually take on over 30 students from media production courses, giving some of them their first experiences in the animation and production industry. Ensuring that students from a range of backgrounds and walks of life have the experience to get started in the industry is so important to us.
What impact could the Covid-19 pandemic have on the animation industry long-term?
Animation is in a unique position right now, as many studios still have the ability to produce content, even if it has to be done remotely. Live-action productions, on the other hand, have seen many delays to productions and will have to adapt more significantly in a post-Covid world. However, I feel that teams always do work better when they are actually together, by being with one another and bouncing ideas off others, as well as the companionship of working physically in the same place.
Pop Paper City
How are subscription video-on-demand services changing the animation industry?
SVoD services are giving producers more opportunities to find homes for their projects and allow the story and character from a series to be a driver, more than the format of the show or the toy potential. They are bringing more competition into the marketplace overall. With the rise of SVoD, there are challenges not only for pay TV but also for free TV to compete for audiences. Terrestrial television has a unique challenge and it should spur them to be creating even more innovative and engaging TV.
Tell us about the project you are pitching at Cartoon Forum.
Pop Paper City (52×11′) is a 3D preschool craft series focusing on a group of unique paper friends who live in the capital of a captivating paper world. In each episode, the characters find new ways to have fun together by going on exciting adventures and creating new parts of their impressive world. We currently have Aardman as our distributor, as well as a UK broadcaster on board, and have been doing well with pre-sales, although we’re still looking for additional international broadcasters and partners. Earlier this year it won the MipTV Kids Series Pitch virtually, though we, of course, missed out on many of the great networking opportunities the event usually offers when you’re there in person.
Producer/MD
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