Homegrown Animation on a Roll
China's animation industry looks set to remain the fastest growing content production sector in China in 2009, thanks to a two-pronged government policy that couples financial support for the local industry with continuing tight restrictions on the broadcast of foreign content.
China began its massive project to reclaim the "hearts and minds" of Chinese youth in 2004, when it launched a new animation channels at both the national and local levels. The government invested significant sums of money into developing consolidated animation production bases, while SARFT partnered up with the Ministry of Finance to fund 293 innovative projects. At the same time, SARFT released a new regulation barring broadcasters from airing foreign animation during prime time hours and placing tough restrictions on the broadcast of all foreign content outside these hours.
Five years later, the local industry is bearing the fruits of the investment. Mainland organizations produced 249 animation titles with a combined length of 131,042 minutes by the end of 2008, a 28% increase on 2007. The industry is producing some quality as well as quantity too. To wit, the big screen adaptation of the long-running Pleasant Goat and Big, Big Wolf TV series proved a major hit over the busy New Year/Spring Festival cinema season, scooping RMB68 million (US$9.95 million) in total box office receipts 15 days.
The government support for the animation industry looks set to continue unabated in 2009. SARFT recently unveiled a new program to provide more than RMB8 million (US$1.17 million) in funding to support promising projects and talented industry professionals (see story under Policy and Regulation).
The government is also keen to help local animation companies take the leap from mainly acting as "service companies" working on outsourced animation for international companies, to internationally-recognized animation brands in their own right.
While the technical skills and production values of the local industry have improved substantially, producers remain weak at both the initial concept development stages and the final marketing and promotion stages.
They're hoping foreign producers can help local producers make the leap from acting as "service companies" doing routine outsourced work for international producers to acting as cutting-edge production companies capable of producing animations with international appeal.
To this end, the government is promoting animation co-productions that actively engage local companies in the creative process. Senior SARFT officials promoted opportunities for animation co-productions at last year's MIPCOM. A large delegation of officials from Hangzhou, home to one of the leading animation production bases in China, will attend MIP this year to explore opportunities for co-productions.
In meeting after meeting over the last six months, CMM-I staff say it has been made abundantly clear that Chinese partners must play a role in the creative process for any production to get official co-production status. They're no longer content to take creative direction from their foreign partners while they do all the slog-work on the creative side. CMM-I expects this new found creative assertiveness to continue throughout 2009.