Car­toon Busi­ness 2022: Highlights

Just as each year, Cartoon Business was a great moment of learnings. When professionals openly share so many insightful experiences and advice, it results in an incredible feeling of trust and empowerment. The wonderful city of Las Palmas under a bright sun was the perfect setting to meet fellow producers, distributors, finance people in a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.

PAR­TIC­I­PA­TION NUMBERS

We were hap­py to wel­come 134 par­tic­i­pants from 26 coun­tries. Among them, 37 speakers and experts were attend­ing. During the one-to-one meetings, 155 meetings of speed dating happened in two and half hours with 75 participants

TOPICS & TRENDS FROM CARTOON BUSINESS 2022

Be patient and dar­ing. Patience has been cel­e­brat­ed as cer­tain process or appli­ca­tion can take time. Whether it is for apply­ing to a great train­ing pro­gram, a grant, find­ing the right copro­duc­er, or choos­ing a VC to invest in your com­pa­ny, patience is often required, and your project will always ben­e­fit from it – Char­lotte Appel­gren (Cine-Regio - Region­al Film & AV Funds), Adi­na Pitt (Warn­er­Me­dia), or Lars Wag­n­er (Big Idea Farm).
But some­times also, just being patient is not enough, and if the solu­tion do not come to you, you might have to invent it – Mladen Duk­ić (Aeon), Sari­ta Chris­tensen (Copen­hagen Bom­bay), or Hervé Dupont (For­tiche Production).

Financ­ing – where to find the mon­ey. A cre­ative indus­try stays cre­ative even when it comes to busi­ness and mon­ey. A lot of talks and use cas­es high­light­ed many dif­fer­ent ways to get a project fund­ed. We heard about VCs, Kick­starter cam­paigns, open­ing pro­duc­ers rights to a com­mu­ni­ty, NFTs with perks attached, pub­lic fund­ings, sell­ing lim­it­ed rights, and so many more – Sophie Saget (Andar­ta Pic­tures), Madi­ana Asser­af (Euro­pean Broad­cast­ing Union (EBU), Mau­rice Wheel­er (We Are Fam­i­ly), among oth­ers.

Insight­ful views from past to future. When it comes to reflect­ing on the future, it’s impor­tant to have a clear view on what hap­pened in the past. A few com­pa­nies took us on their jour­ney (Car­toon Saloon, De Hoflever­anciers, For­tiche Pro­duc­tion, among oth­ers) of suc­cess­es and fail­ures that lead them towards ambi­tious and dar­ing strat­e­gy for their future.

The Smurfs, the jour­ney of a brand. François Deglain (Peyo Pro­duc­tions) and Sébastien Dumont (IMPS) took us on a jour­ney through the highs and lows of the Smurfs’ brand. Mix­ing the mar­ket­ing side with insights in the con­tent, we got to under­stand how del­i­cate it is to keep and defend the strong val­ues and the core qual­i­ties of a brand.

Edu­ca­tion in ani­ma­tion. Three Euro­pean ani­ma­tion schools (Gob­elins - L’Ecole de l’im­age – France, The Ani­ma­tion Work­shop – Den­mark, Ecole de Condé – France) were rep­re­sent­ed, dis­cussing how they inter­na­tion­al­ized their cur­ricu­lum, and how the local stu­dents ben­e­fit­ted from this open­ing to the world.

MANY THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS
The main partners of Cartoon Business are Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme, Cabildo de Gran Canaria – SPEGC, and the Gran Canaria Film Commission.