Sep 19, 2019

Cartoon Forum 2019 Day 2 report: new pitch roundup

Cartoon Forum, Europe's largest co-production platform for TV series, took place Wednesday in Toulouse, France.

Nearly 1,000 participants, made up of producers, distributors, investors, broadcasters, SVOD platforms, artists, and others, are watching the pitches in hopes of finding the next big thing in animated series. since 1990, Cartoon Forum has helped more than 780 European series have been helped to receive €2.7 billion worth of funding.

Below are some highlights from the second day of pitches (click here for a roundup of the pitches I saw on the first day). The fact that they are almost exclusively French is partly due to my schedule, but also reflects France's dominance in the Cartoon Forum and the European industry in general. Of the 85 projects this year, 26 feature French production partners, followed by nine from Belgium.

Projects Three children spend their free time playing, daydreaming, and exploring their environment. One of them, Noa, is deaf, but all three communicate in ways they can all understand.

Pitch This impressive series explicitly features deaf children, but it is not tokenistic. In front of a packed house, the producers stressed the reasons why regular children's programming might exclude deaf children (for one thing, they cannot follow the subtitles). Hence, the accent in “Truth” is on stories without dialogue. However, Noa's circumstances are also not problematized as a theme. That she is deaf is only revealed late in the pitch, almost as an afterthought. The subdued palette and simple lines are reminiscent of Belgian Franco comics, and while Les Fées Spéciales has worked on such high-profile films as Michel Othello's feature film “Dirili in Paris,” “Truths” is the first original work by the studio in its four years of existence

The question is: “What is the future of the film?

The question is: Can “Truths” convey an inclusive message for all children, not just deaf children, without being too thick-skinned?

Details: 26 two-minute, five-second episodes; Les Fées Spéciales; for ages 6-9; for children ages 6-9; for children ages 6-9; for children ages 6-9; for children ages 6-9; for children ages 6-12.

Plot: Teenagers on summer vacation at a French boarding school encounter strange beasts and demons. Is this their imagination or the school itself: Le Collège Noire has been highly acclaimed in France. The film is based on the hit comic of the same name, inspired by Ulysse Malassagne's childhood in the rural Cantal region. More than any other project I've seen at Cartoon Forum, the film conveys a rich sense of story-world, along with a finely detailed 2D depiction. In one scene, a young girl is attacked by a scary monster, which turns out to be sleep paralysis. This is likely due to Studio La Cachette's experience working with major U.S. television networks such as Netflix (“Love, Death & Robots”) and Adult Swim (“Primal”).

Question Even if the world feels fully realized, the same cannot be said about all the characters. The main character, Ulysse, is an avatar of Malassagne himself, but the other characters are often from trendy children's series. Some of the performances suggested a more sophisticated characterization, such as the sleep paralysis scene: 26 episodes of 13 minutes each. Studio is La Cachette/Milan Presse/Bayard Jeunesse Animation. 8.5-10 million euros. ages 12-15.

Planning Martha Jane grew up freewheeling on the American frontier. But when her father suddenly leaves her strict pioneering leadership, the 12-year-old girl finds her world turned upside down. Fortunately, she has wisdom and daring, which help her become Calamity Jane.

Pitch Little is known about the real Calamity Jane's childhood, and this series fills in the blanks with a largely fictional origin story. It is actually a sequel to the feature film “Calamity: The Childhood of Martha Jane Canary,” directed by the acclaimed Remi Chaillet. The film's Flash-based animation is essentially an improved version of the pipeline used in Chayet's first feature, “Long Way North,” and the series appears to have been made using the same method. Chayet, however, is not the director. Producers are looking for a female series director, but are having difficulty finding one: “If you know someone, please let me know.”

Doubt The series is not scheduled to begin until late 2021, but will follow the films. How will the stories of the two films tie together, and will the series further elaborate on Chayet's unique and minimalist graphic approach?

Details 26 x 26 min. episodes. Maybe film/2 min. ages 6-11.