by Marc Guidoni , published on 17.07.2009

Again a great year in Annecy! The International Market of Animation Film has set new affluence records. All that despite the economic crisis, which seems to be a little kinder on the images industry…

The details of the organizer’s report are available on this webpage

A few words on the new formats and the new ways of writing, the special focus of a professional conference led, among others, by:

• Tom Mc Gillis (Fresh TV – Toronto)
• Jerry Hibbert (HRA – Londres),
• Hervé Tardif (3Dclic – Paris),
• Franck Ekinci (Studio JSBC – Paris).

Here are some conclusive thoughts by Pierre Siracusa, one of the main decision makers for animation programs at France Televisions:

“France Televisions ordered 26’26” formats until the beginning of the year 2000, that progressively changed towards 52’13” or 78’7” formats. For the last few years FTV has been encouraging de-formatting: the idea is to go toward shorter formats (about 50 episodes of 1’ to 3’30”). In 2006, France Television sent a call out to the industry regarding these very short formats. They were surprised to realize that their classic partners, big animation studios, weren’t very inclined to respond…”. This confirms the theory according to which innovation has to come from “elsewhere”…

“The first series that appealed to them was produced by Studio Hari, a new studio that presented them with several pilots including “La chouette” and “Léon”. They are jewels of dark humor, short films created by incredibly talented authors that are constantly renewing themselves, stripping the form to its simplest incarnation.” It’s interesting to note that, out of the three partners of studio Hari, two come from the video game world, and one from advertising…

The result is that the studio has managed to thrive on this very universal film format since a distributor took on the program “la chouette” and sold it to 200 countries.

For FTV, “these short series formats have a real R&D vocation, allowing classic producer to promote some graphic designers to directing, with the possibility of developing a longer format later.”

This is the way in for new actors, producers, authors, new ideas… Take on audacious projects, be proud of them…