Terhi Väänänen

CEO & co-founder
Pyjama Films
Finland

Pitching: Belzebubs
 
What is the biggest issue facing the animation industry?
The public service broadcasters are putting less and less money into projects, while we want to be very high-end with our quality and be very original. But we don’t want to sell our content to the SVoDs and have no ownership of it. There are so many opportunities today, but if you come from a smaller country with less national funding and you still want to hold on to ownership of your project while being international, it can be hard to fit in and make your projects happen.

What is your company doing in response to this?
We are trying to be clever to find our place in that ecosystem. We want to make high-end and stereotype-breaking content, so we have to focus on finding the right partners for our projects who will let us tell the stories we want to tell, whilst still giving us money to make them happen.

What impact could the Covid-19 pandemic have on the animation industry long-term?
It could give a boost to the adult animation side of the industry because if live-action productions can’t go on in a situation like this and the adults still want content, animation productions can still keep on running. The broadcasters and distributors can count on us to provide. So in the long term, animation could be a good option for people to invest their money in.

How are subscription video-on-demand services changing the animation industry?
They are diversifying the content quite a bit. Netflix and the other streaming services can reach a global niche audience, so they can take more risks with their commissions. I’m optimistic about their impact.

Tell us about the project you are pitching at Cartoon Forum.
Belzebubs (13×22′) is a family sitcom for young adults that documents the life of a regular devil-worshipping family, focusing on the dad’s effort to push his black metal band forward. It’s based on JP Ahonen’s web comic and there’s also a real existing band, so it’s really a cross-media thing. We’re making the animated series in coproduction with YLE, Finland’s national broadcaster, which is coming in with a lot more funding than it would for a kids’ series, so it’s a great situation for us. Now we are looking for an international coproduction partner.