Sep 11, 2015

Turner Partners with Korea for "Beat Monster"

Turner Broadcasting's largest animation project in South Korea, Beat Monsters, will hit Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa next year.

This is an important development as South Korea moves away from service work and subcontracting for Western companies to locally created ideas; as Cartoon Brew reported earlier this year, South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is investing over $300 million in the domestic animation industry through 2019.

Turner's collaboration with Korea's Synergy Media and Studio Goindl on "Beat Monsters" is a milestone in that direction. This international co-production will feature 52 two-minute shorts (plus micro shorts) that blend CGI and live-action elements. scheduled to begin airing in late 2016, "Beat Monsters" will be available on Turner's kids' channels in the Asia-Pacific region (Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Toonami, etc.) and on Cartoon Network in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. [Synergy Media President Eugene Kang said in a press release, "Partnering with Turner to expose our IP to millions of households is a real boon for us. And we hope this will be the first of many projects and co-productions that Turner and Synergy can work on together."

"These fun and fresh short films are exactly what we are looking for as part of our international short film program," Mark Ayers, Turner's Chief Content Officer for the Kids' Network in Asia He added. Turner Asia Pacific's shorts program is now focused on producing content that meets the demands of multi-platform services and apps such as Cartoon Network Anything and Cartoon Network Watch & Play, as well as broadcast The company also works with studios and artists in Singapore, Taiwan, India, Australia, the United States, and Japan.

Directed by Studio Goindol president Jeong-soo Hur, Beat Monsters has been in development since at least 2012, when this trailer was posted online. In this dialogue-free pilot, sound plays a big role, with the characters themselves making a lot of noise as they jostle for the front seat of a limo, enjoy a fancy dinner, or take a victory selfie... This series, which runs two or three minutes apiece, relies above all on physical It will rely on comedy more than anything else.