Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Europe's Cartoons

Animation steadily expands in the EU.

... Fifty-six projects and pics are due to be presented to producers, distributors and sales agents at the 15th Cartoon Movie.

Europe’s top animated feature co-production forum kicks off its three-day run Wednesday in Lyon, France.

Cartoon Movie delivers a take on the multiple moving parts of European animated feature production, as it reaches out to consolidate synergies with the vidgame sector.

The numbers of participants are up. Some 255 attended the first edition in 1999, more than 700 are expected this year plus 120 distributors, 20% up on 2012 and 60% more than 2009.

The number of movies for the rugrat crowd are also up as Europe’s growing animation sector evolves.

“After decades of Pixar, now ‘Rango’ and ‘Wreck-It Ralph,’ which are really solid movies, audiences have matured,” said Philip Einstein Lipski, at Denmark’s Einstein Film (“Ronal the Barbarian”).

“European producers, who live in a public support eco-system, are finally catching up, becoming more ambitious to at least try to make films that match the American movies in terms of story and character.”

“Feature film animation in Europe really only started with Michel Ocelot’s ‘Kirikou and the Sorceress’ about 15 years ago,” agreed Cartoon Movie general director Marc Vandeweyer.

“It’s taken 10 years to train professionals, to put everything in place — strong concepts, pacy adventure, graphics. The last two to three years have seen a quality leap in results.” ...

Most of Europe's animated product has (thus far) failed to break out into world markets:

"... Some higher-end Euro animation has underperformed in ever-tougher international pre-sales markets causing, most notably, Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp to pull out of toonpic production altogether. ..."


It's not enough to get your movie produced. It also must turn a profit, so you can make the next one. The animated features from those pesky American entertainment conglomerates continue to bite at Europe's heels.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Europeans are producing good animated films to rival Pixar. Is this really a "new" idea?

Have any of these people seen "Belleville Rendezvous," "Persepolis," "Secret of Kells," or "The Illusionist?"

Chris Sobieniak said...

They always rival!

Steve Hulett said...

Have any of these people seen "Belleville Rendezvous," "Persepolis," "Secret of Kells," or "The Illusionist?"

A chosen few have seen the above, but that's the problem.

Audiences for the continent's output needs to be bigger.

Chris Sobieniak said...

I was glad to see Belleville Rendezvous when it did get screened at an accessible theater in my town way, way back. I wish more cinemas would clue in to those works that do get overlooked anyway due to smaller markets. It does need to be bigger.

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