Channel 21 International - Spring 2021 - KIDS

Kids

Everything about kids’ content

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A family affair: Co-viewing in the spotlight

Graphic novels lead the serial drama charge

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DWA’s Peter Gal on the Peacock pecking order

PLUS: Canada’s Mercury Filmworks pushes into original IP Spring 2021

20 x 11’

Ages 8+ & Family

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Content for families

Channel21 International | Spring 2021

Family planning Content for the whole family has been in huge demand during the pandemic and high rates of co-viewing are expected to continue, even as lockdowns ease. But will Disney+ blow everyone else out the water? By Nico Franks

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or many parents and caregivers during the pandemic, the discovery of a show they can genuinely enjoy watching with their kids has been almost as well received as the various vaccines that will protect us against Covid-19.

Of course, that is assuming the show is suitable for kids and they’re not being introduced to Game of Thrones a decade or two ahead of schedule. To avoid that, broadcasters and streamers are supplying bumper amounts of content designed to appeal to multiple age groups at once.

Channel 4 in the UK, for example, last year started airing a “less naughty” ‘bleeped’ version of its entertainment show Taskmaster in an early-evening, more family friendly slot on E4.

But what separates a kids’ show that parents are happy to watch with their children and a programme that truly gets the whole family together around the screen?

“It really depends on the age of the children within the family, as coviewing kids’ content goes through different phases as children get older,” says Lucy Murphy, director of kids’ content at European media giant Sky. “When kids are younger, parents often look for shows that educate and entertain and will happily watch alongside their children knowing they are supporting their child’s learning or development – sometimes repeatedly. For more laid-back downtime co-viewing with younger

children, the key is that they are not annoying for the parent.”

That is why preschool hits like Hey Duggee and Peppa Pig are so popular – they appeal to both children and parents because of the humour in the writing and because they are centred on family life, adds Murphy.

“But then, as children get older, and for families where there are children of mixed ages, light entertainment shows become appointment-to-view for the whole family. Good-natured, comfortable programmes such as The Simpsons, The Great British Bake Off and Britain’s Got Talent have talkability across generations, with entertainment for all and a seam of adult humour that often isn’t spotted u by children,” says Murphy.

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As children get older, and for families where there are children of mixed ages, light entertainment shows become appointmentto-view for the whole family.

Lucy Murphy Sky

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Content for families

Channel21 International | Spring 2021

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I’m a fan of The Mandalorian. It’s exactly what you’d expect and hope for from the Star Wars franchise.

However, in the overall kids’ space, that type of sci-fi show is just one part of the experience sought out by Caption the co-viewing audience.

Katie Wilson

WildBrain Television The Mandalorian

“As they enter their early teenage years, children often begin to watch shows with stronger adult themes alongside family members. The likes of Love Island and First Dates can provide great opportunities for parents and kids to start conversations about relationships and how you should treat others.

Whilst family-friendly comedies such as Peep Show or Friday Night Dinner give cross-generational laughs without being too inappropriate.”

Sky’s strategy is to aggregate content from other networks and streaming services, as well as commission originals such as Moominvalley – which had strong cross-generational appeal and an all-star voice cast – to offer a variety of options all in one place for the entire family, to make it easier to find something suitable to watch.

Toronto-based producer and distributor Sinking Ship Entertainment focuses on both children and families too, but does it differentiate between familyfriendly, family-skewing and coviewing content?

“We do look at a variety of ways in which co-viewing audiences are defined. Some of our kids’ shows – Endlings, Lockdown, and Ghostwriter as examples – were created for a young audience, but we recognise that adults in the room will also be drawn to watching with their kids,” says JJ Johnson, partner, executive producer, director and writer at Sinking Ship.

“In the cases of Endlings or Lockdown, we think it’s the topical themes – loss of biodiversity and climate change, or racism and isolation during a pandemic – that

create family conversation-starters.

With Ghostwriter, it is in the builtin nostalgia around a reboot of an iconic series. For the most part, our programmes are family-friendly, with an eye towards making sure that we are always talking up to our audience, not down.

“When you talk to the audience at their level and take them seriously, that inevitably opens opportunities for parents, guardians and kids alike to take away these messages and engage in larger conversations. While we know parents and older teens aren’t our core audience, we always want to make shows they will also be interested in,” adds Johnson.

There’s no doubt demand for programming the whole family can watch together is rising, after the unexpected events of the past year provided a co-viewing boost to linear networks such as Family Channel in Canada.

“It’s been very interesting to observe the type of content that has been resonating with Canadian

Netflix UK’s Alexi Wheeler

families over the last year. Unscripted series such as Top Chef Jr and Get Out of My Room have contributed significantly to co-viewing success on the channel. Similarly, live-action genre series like Malory Towers and Just Add Magic have proven popular with kids and parents, offering muchneeded escape through authentic stories and relatable characters,” says Katie Wilson, VP of channels and curation at Family Channel owner WildBrain Television.

“Building on this trend, we’ve recently added the live-action comedic fantasy series Dwight in Shining Armour to our primetime line-up, because we feel it has strong family appeal.”

Meanwhile, WildBrain Spark, a sibling company of WildBrain Television that specialises in content for digital platforms, experienced a similar boost as a result of the pandemic.

The firm called on independent digital TV analyst nScreenMedia to examine just how families’ viewing habits have changed while in lockdown and its report, Making Screen Time Family Time, was drawn from a survey of around 3,000 families in the US. It found 75% of parents were watching video with their children several times a week towards the end of last year, with YouTube and YouTube Kids increasingly the goto destination for families looking for premium longform children’s content.

“Furthermore, the increasing penetration of connected TVs in the home, coupled with new family habits during the pandemic, is accelerating this trend. Parents and kids are going

‘back to the future’ by watching premium longform kids’ shows that are streamed to their connected TVs from ad-funded platforms,” WildBrain Spark’s executive VP and MD Jon Gisby told C21 in late 2020.

Many of the premium streamers that saw subscription rates shoot up this time last year have family programming in their sights, with Netflix chief among them. The global giant is looking to retain its current title as the streaming service of choice in many markets around the world, which it won, in part, thanks to originals like Stranger Things that are popular with both adults and older kids.

“Our aim is to make content that can be enjoyed by everyone. Many of our kids and family projects have broad global appeal, so naturally are watched and enjoyed by families together. We also realise that no one family is the same, so we work hard to be diverse in our storytelling and to keep different audiences entertained,” says Alexi Wheeler, Netflix’s UK-based director of kids and family content.

The former Nickelodeon exec points to kids’ drama series Zero Chill, which was filmed in Sheffield in the north of England and recently launched on the global streamer, as a show that was developed to appeal to audiences of different ages in the UK and beyond.

Another forthcoming Netflix original that finished filming recently in the UK is The Last Bus, a liveaction production from Wildseed Studios that tells the story of a group of mismatched school kids who band together to face a fearsome new machine intelligence. u

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Content for families

Channel21 International | Spring 2021

Sky commission Moominvalley.

Right: Family Channel unscripted acquisition Top Chef Jr

“When we developed the series, one of our goals was to make a great high-end show that leaned towards being a big sci-fi drama. Our focus has been more about delivering a great, entertaining and captivating show that kids and family can enjoy together without ‘speaking down’ to our audience. This means upping the drama and jeopardy to keep up the intrigue while also maintaining high production standards so that it looks great,” says Wheeler.

With some countries now enjoying life outside of lockdown and restrictions beginning to ease in others, do the execs in Canada and the UK feel confident families will continue watching more and more content together in the years ahead?

Or is the current uptick a temporary consequence of the pandemic?

“There will always be opportunities for families to experience content together. It may not look the same as it has in the past, but sharing stories has always been a universal experience,” says Sinking Ship’s Johnson.

“There’s no shortage of engaging stories just waiting to be told. Familyskewing content has always been in strong demand and that certainly hasn’t changed,” adds WildBrain Television’s Wilson, who believes “finding great partners to work with” in coproductions is key to being able to compete with streaming services like Disney+.

For Sky’s Murphy, the pandemic has brought families together, and that will continue. “One of the real silver linings of lockdown has meant families reconnecting with one another. Connected TVs are creating more opportunities for coviewing and there’s no denying when watching content together people prefer a larger screen, whether watching YouTube videos, a show or a movie,” she says.

“The pandemic has encouraged

people to actively search for content to watch together. So at Sky, we focused on the merchandising of our platform to make that process easier, so families can find content they will love quicker. We made Family Favourite rails and focused on both the curation of content and commissioning of new content.”

For Wheeler at Netflix, co-viewing isn’t going away any time soon. “I love that we’re providing families with shared viewing moments and providing content that households can enjoy together. Entertaining multiple generations at once feels like something that will continue well into the future,” he says.

However, there’s no doubt Netflix now faces stiff competition in this space from The Walt Disney Company, with families the primary target audience for its streaming service Disney+, where it is applying

the four-quadrant movie strategy to its high-end original series based on brands such as Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar.

As arguably the company most adept at supplying family content, what chance do others have of keeping up with the Mouse House and shows like The Mandalorian, WandaVision and The Falcon & The Winter Soldier that are proving so popular?

“Personally, I’m a fan of The Mandalorian. It’s exactly what you’d expect and hope for from the Star Wars franchise. However, in the overall kids’ space, that type of sci-fi show is just one part of the experience sought out by the coviewing audience,” says WildBrain Television’s Wilson.

“At Family Channel, we strive to offer something for everyone, in all the ways they are looking to view.

Unscripted content that showcases

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When you talk to the audience at their level and take them seriously, that inevitably opens opportunities for parents, guardians and kids alike to take away these messages and engage in larger conversations.

JJ Johnson

Sinking Ship Entertainment

real people and authentic experiences is a proven audience winner. Family Channel’s scripted and animation line-up offers a sense of escape for viewers. Ultimately, if it’s a great story with strong characters, that’s what family audiences are looking for,” adds Wilson.

It is perhaps indicative of the power of Disney in this space that Sky, itself part of a major US media giant, Comcast, isn’t necessarily looking to go toe to toe with the Mouse House or Netflix and is instead zigging where they zag.

“We look at the Sky platform ecosystem and do not aim to overlap but commission into where there are gaps for us to fulfil our audience’s wants and needs. We are an aggregator of choice and you can see that with the content and apps we have available on Sky Q, but also in our commissioning choices for original programming. This includes The Brilliant World of Tom Gates, with its uniquely British appeal, and The Epic Adventures of Morph, which has a fairly short running time but is a real crowd-pleaser for everyone in the family,” says Murphy.

Could a chasm open up between the big-budget ambitions of streamers like Disney+ and the programming traditional broadcasters are looking to commission to attract families? Or are the latter keeping up?

“Budget doesn’t guarantee quality, but certainly with so many new services coming online and each one looking to differentiate themselves from each other, we have absolutely noticed an increase in the amount that streamers are willing to put forward if they believe in the idea,” says Sinking Ship’s Johnson.

“In the past, to get to similar budget levels, we’ve had to pull together multiple international networks, which comes with the advantage of the content feeling accessible to global audiences because there has been input from global perspectives.

At the end of the day, regardless of budget, you want to partner with someone who believes in what you’re trying to say,” adds Johnson.

Indeed, rather than reducing opportunities for others, the activities of Disney+ and other international streaming services with families on their radar, like WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and Comcast’s Peacock, look more likely to join Netflix in helping elevate family content to new heights in the years ahead.

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Development Slate: Mercury Filmworks

Channel21 International | Spring 2021

Mercury on the rise Canadian studio Mercury Filmworks’ long-awaited push into original IP is bearing fruit, with Heath Kenny at the helm.

By Nico Franks

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ince the late 1990s, Canada’s Mercury Filmworks has made its name in service animation, providing work for the biggest names in the industry, including Disney, Netflix, Apple TV+, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.

A push into original IP has been in the pipeline since as far back as 2011 but it took a major step towards its goal of producing its own shows when it hired Heath Kenny, a former Gaumont creative executive, as chief content officer in early 2019.

The company recently announced some of the new shows on its originals slate, which have been developed alongside its in-house animators and creatives, including one idea for fourto six-year-olds from Kenny himself, inspired by his childhood in New Zealand.

Kenny, who is now based in Ottawa having previously spent time in France with Gaumont and his indie company You & Eye Creative, says the key thing he wants to create at Mercury is an environment where people working in-house can feel comfortable pitching their own ideas. As a result, developing people, rather than the ideas, was the priority.

“It can’t just be an opportunistic thing. We’ve tried to allow our people to have that time to figure things out, because when you’re doing anything that’s genuinely innovative or entrepreneurial, there has to be room to fail and experiment as that will lead to more interesting propositions.

“The goal is to continue to grow and build opportunities within the company for our employees and hopefully also attract other types of partners to build stories from the ground up,” says Kenny.

Above: Heath Kenny was inspired to make Pangors of Puddle Peak by his own childhood memories. Left: Adventure series BloopyMerps

This strategy to invest in concepts from internal talent has seen three long-term employees of the company, Shane Plante, Ross Love and David Laliberte, come up with a show bible and pilot script for 2D animated, serialised children’s adventure series BloopyMerps.

The show centres on a rules-loving robot and a soft-hearted alien on a mission to terraform a lifeless planet that’s not as lifeless as they thought.

Evan Thaler Hickey (Go Away Unicorn, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!) has come on board as writer, having worked with the creators on the eight-episode season one story arc.

Meanwhile, the 3D animated series based on Kenny’s childhood, Pangors of Puddle Peak, is aimed at four- to

six-year-olds and follows two friends who discover previously unknown creatures called Pangors at the top of a hill near where they live and realise they need help.

Mercury Filmworks has also optioned the children’s book Hello My Name is Octicorn, written by Justin Lowe and Kevin Diller. The book tells the story of a funny, friendly character who is half-octopus, half-unicorn and Kenny says it feels particularly relevant in a time of emotional upheaval and unprecedented uncertainty.

“It’s important to provide kids with content that helps them untangle their feelings associated with anxiety, celebrate their differences and laugh out loud. Octicorn fits this goal perfectly,” says Kenny.

Former Wildbrain, Spin Master and Netflix exec Josh Fisher (I Got a Rocket) is on board to executive produce the animated series.

“I see our development department as a plucky little cousin to the big service studio. On the development side, we have everything to prove, and we’re building and growing slowly,” says Kenny.

After working at large companies and at his own indie, Kenny has become a big believer in testing ideas early to find a “product/market fit.”

“Having an idea is all well and good but you need to make sure there’s an appetite for it in the marketplace and an opportunity to get it financed and made. So I try taking ideas to market as early as possible to test them and see,” says Kenny, who believes three years is the maximum time one should cling on to any single idea. If no one bites after that, then perhaps it’s just not a fit, or the right time, so the best thing to do is move on.

“We are somewhat obliged to listen to the market. However, if you start pandering to it then you have very little to offer. The only thing that really is going to resonate with an audience is an honest story that has strong, clear human themes,” he adds.

© Ragdoll Productions Ltd. 2021

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Channel21 International | Spring 2021

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Serialised shows

TeamTO’s Ninn is based on a graphic fantasy novel

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or decades, most bibles for animated kids’ projects have emphasised the closed-ended nature of their episodes, which lend themselves to repeatability and give schedulers the flexibility to air a series any way they like. Flick on the telly and start watching an episode of kids’ TV and the odds are everything will be neatly tied up by the end of the show.

But the word ‘serialised’ is appearing more and more in the development materials of children’s series, as the relevance of linear TV schedules to young audiences continues to wane and streaming platforms become the launch pads for new shows.

Of course, animé shows from Japan have been doing serialised episodes for years. The genre continues to defy the ‘niche’ tag that it is often erroneously given, with Crunchyroll – currently the subject of a US$1bn takeover – recently breaking into the top 10 streaming services in the UK, according to research from BroadbandDeals.com.

Meanwhile, the reality for producers from Europe and North America has been that to get their animated shows off the ground, the most commissioners would be willing to stretch to was a light story arc running through a series.

But binge viewing on streaming services and the success of shows such as Hilda on Netflix have put paid to the received wisdom that kids aren’t into serialised content. As a result, many European and North American animation producers have begun work on their first serialised shows, opening up a whole new subset of the industry.

Serialised, high-concept animated shows from Europe and North America are finally finding a route to market thanks to the popularity of graphic novels, webcomics and streaming platforms. By Nico Franks Julien Borde, a children’s TV veteran who recently joined the kids and family arm of pan-European independent media group Mediawan, believes there has never been such a demand for so many different styles and formats among children’s buyers. “The huge success of streamers means traditional broadcasters are really opening up to new kinds of shows. It’s a fantastic moment for content, because both the streamers and traditional broadcasters are looking for projects that are different,” he says.

“I’ve been in the industry for a long time now, so I can remember when things were really just focused on comedy series and you couldn’t do anything else. Now, with the streamers and all the content that is available for kids everywhere, all of the time, there is a real need to differentiate in the fight to get kids’ attention. So you can be really original. It’s a golden age.”

One of the main beneficiaries of this boom in demand for more ambitious children’s shows has been the publishing industry, with competition to acquire rights to established and popular IP growing fiercer by the year. So far, many of the serialised animated children’s series to be u

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Surprisingly, more and more public broadcasters have expressed interest in serialised series and ‘deeper’ stories – not necessarily dark but more meaningful and definitely more original and creatordriven.

Emmanuèle Pétry Sirvin Dandelooo

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Serialised shows

Channel21 International | Spring 2021

The Upside Down River stirred interest at Cartoon Forum

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Everyone is looking for that exciting story that will generate buzz and audience.

It feels like now is a great time for all types of content and darker stories are just one of the new doors opening up.

Corinne Kouper TeamTO

commissioned have been based on graphic novels, growing numbers of which are targeting school-age children and young adults.

According to NPD Bookscan, young-adult and juvenile categories were less affected by Covid in the second quarter in the US last year, compared with adult graphic novels, as younger readers had more free time while in lockdown.

Ivanka Hahnenberger, general manager at VIP Brands, a Paris-based licensing agent that handles European comics and graphic novels, says there has been an uptick in the number of producers looking at graphic novels of late, accelerated by people burning through content whilst in lockdown. “Graphic novels have a big advantage for producers searching for content, because the look and feel of the storyboard is already there,” says Hahnenberger, who attended Cartoon Forum in 2019 to link up with IPhungry producers from across Europe.

France has a long tradition of comics and animation production, so it’s no surprise to see the two industries continue to complement one another as they both step up their storytelling ambitions.

Highlighting the extent to which interest is growing in serialised animated series, the most-viewed pitch at last year’s virtual Cartoon Forum event was The Upside Down River (9x26’), from French producer and distributor Dandelooo and based on the novel La Rivière à l’Envers by Jean Claude Mourlevat.

This ambitious show is about an adventurous quest in a poetic fantasy world, following a young girl’s search for water drops from the Qjar river in order to heal her sacred bird. Backed by Canal+ Family, it certainly sounds a far cry from your average kids’ toon set in a high school overrun by monsters/aliens/etc.

Aimed at eight- to 12-year-olds, it wasn’t the only serialised show on offer, joining the likes of Andarta Pictures’ pitch for Baïdir (26x26’) and Vango (12x30’), from Tant Mieux Prod, which is also making the eagerly anticipated Toby Lolness (13x52’) for France Télévisions.

Discussing The Upside Down River, Emmanuèle Pétry Sirvin, partner and producer at Dandelooo, says the novel on which it is based could have been a feature film, but the firm decided to make it into a series due to the growing appetite from buyers. “Surprisingly, more and more public

broadcasters have expressed interest in serialised series and ‘deeper’ stories – not necessarily dark but more meaningful and definitely more original and creator-driven,” she says.

“The commercial channels don’t yet seem to have shifted towards this trend, although TF1 was one of the first European channels to show a serialised show, with The Mysterious Cities of Gold by Jean Chalopin, who is a true visionary creator.

“It seems The Upside Down River struck a chord because buyers are in need of beautiful projects and the pure ‘comedy-comedy-comedy’ era may well be fading. Some of the feedback said, ‘Wow we love this project, bravo, but unfortunately it is not possible on our channel.’ But, thank goodness, most of the comments were that they were open to buying the series once it’s been made.”

Herein lies one of the challenges when it comes to getting a serialised animated show for young audiences off the ground: many buyers are still unwilling to take a risk on it until it has been made and they can see the finished product.

Pétry Sirvin says: “These shows are more expensive because all the episodes are original and a pure creation and there is no possibility for re-use. So either you go down the 100% digital model route – then the tough part is to keep ownership of the IP and international distribution – or you go by the ‘traditional’ route. Then the road is bumpy, because the French broadcasters can only support a quarter of the production cost and you need to set up a copro with another friendly company outside of France.

“But the demand is increasing because currently there is a growing culture of serialised series for adults and children are now seeing and envying their parents as they bingewatch.”

Another French producer, TeamTO, is similarly working on its first serialised show, having acquired the TV, film and licensing rights to the graphic fantasy novel Ninn last year and put a limited series based on the IP into development.

Written by Jean-Michel Darlot and illustrated by Belgian artist Johan Pilet, the series is aimed at the seven-plus age group. It follows an 11-year-old girl in Paris with an unusual passion for the city’s Metro system who is protected by an origami tiger as she searches for the secrets of her past.

Mary Bredin, TeamTo’s creative development executive,

Channel21 International | Spring 2021

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Serialised shows

Serialised toon Hilda found success on Netflix

says: “Adapting graphic novels is a bit of a trend right so you’ve got to be careful before you lock in scripts. And now but it is because they play in a darker, more dramatic you’ve got to capture the nuance of the storytelling in the space, which provides a depth that isn’t normally present in voice work,” says the exec. a lot of animated series.”

Meanwhile, the fact that serialised series have fewer Corinne Kouper, executive producer and co-founder of episodes has implications for the commercial viability of TeamTO, adds that while the streamers are the most keenly a project – something Rutherford has to consider when it interested in these kinds of serialised shows, there are comes to putting together deals to get the shows made. exceptions when it comes to more traditional buyers.

Doing an all-in-one deal with a streamer and handing “Cartoon Network did Over the Garden Wall, so I think over all the rights, as BRS has done with one of its everyone is looking for that exciting story that will generate forthcoming shows, will depend on the extent to which it buzz and audience. It feels like now sees potential for further exploitation is a great time for all types of content in areas like consumer products and and darker stories are just one of the franchise growth. new doors opening up. And while There are also considerations when streamers are looking at traditional it comes to the degree a producer can launch ‘strategies,’ the free-to-airs are push the envelope on a show that will all also developing their own platforms, be put in front of a wide variety of ages, so there is a lot of blending going on,” particularly in an on-demand world. says Kouper.

“We’re always discussing how Kouper agrees that the biggest to make sure, even though you’re challenge is the budget of such shows producing edgier content, that it’s – which can be in the region of US$6m not completely unsuitable for a kids’ – as “there is a lot less amortisation of platform. In a copro, it’s about finding costs compared with a long-running common ground between the partners. animated series.”

You always have to be mindful of who It is not necessarily guaranteed that you’re producing for,” says Rutherford. an adaptation of a graphic novel will The key is not “getting caught in be animated, as highlighted by Netflix Julien Borde of Mediawan between two worlds,” where a serialised UK’s recent commission of a live-action show is too edgy for kids but not mature series based on Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper graphic enough for older, young-adult and adult audiences, adds novels, which started out as a webcomic in 2016. the exec.

Europe is not the only place where graphic novels Nevertheless, for most producers, it’s a welcome problem and children’s books are being eyed as launch pads for to have and many are revelling in getting their teeth stuck ambitious series. Canada’s Boat Rocker Studios (BRS) into the kinds of cinematic shows they’ve always dreamed is working on two animated projects in the genre, both of of producing. which are being made with streamers, says Jon Rutherford, “Working on more mature pieces of animated content, president, BRS Kids & Family and Rights. you can get very creative with the visual aesthetic and style.

The first to be announced, Daniel Spellbound (20x22’), It’s great. You can do a lot with animation, be it a fantasy, is being made with Netflix and is described as a CG a gritty sci-fi or a high-end adventure series. You also save animated adventure series set in a modern-day New York a lot of money compared with a big live-action shoot. So City where magic is real. “It’s a different beast when it it’s very refreshing to be able to open up the doors for comes to producing these things. A lot more thought and serialised work within our portfolio. And, thankfully, we live planning is involved in their preparation versus a typical in a world now where there are a lot more platforms and episodic series. From the writing and the storytelling arc broadcast opportunities for this type of content than ever to production efficiencies, you can’t go back and fix things, before,” says Rutherford.

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Peter Gal

Channel 21 International | Spring 2021

Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous

Making dreams work DreamWorks Animation’s Peter Gal on supplying more content to Peacock, stepping up off-screen diversity efforts and chasing that elusive L&M hit on streaming.

By Nico Franks

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ne of the great misnomers in the kids’ industry is DreamWorks Animation (DWA)’s TV division. Sure, many of the series the unit has produced since its inception in 2013 have ended up on TV channels around the world, but pretty much all of them were made for a streaming service.

The division has grown significantly out of one multi-series deal with Netflix for over 300 hours of new content, agreed eight years ago. Peter Gal, chief creative officer at DWA’s TV arm, believes the landmark original content deal could be the largest ever made in terms of volume.

Back when the deal was struck, Gal was one of the only employees in the division, having shifted over from features. Dozens of original series later, Gal now oversees a team of almost 900 people, the majority of whom have been working remotely since the pandemic took hold. Gal,

however, remains on DWA’s campus, from where he spoke to C21Kids as part of the Canadian Media Production Association’s Prime Time Online 2021 event, programmed in association with C21’s Content Canada.

How has the pandemic affected DWA TV and how are you keeping your team connected?

Covid-19 has changed things a lot. In March last year, we thought we were leaving the campus for two, maybe three weeks and it’s now going on a year. But I have been blown away by our production team’s ability to pivot to remote working. After making sure everyone was safe and healthy, we hit the ground running and haven’t really had any delays to our shows.

Meanwhile, this period has reminded people how important kids’ and family programming is.

We try to find opportunities to connect virtually, not just on work

matters, and encourage the team to talk to co-workers as people rather than about projects. A lot of our creatives have worked together for years now and many of the relationships go back as long as 15 years. We didn’t have as many bumps in the road as others might have had, but it is harder to start up a new show today or bring someone new on to a team. We’ve seen that, so we’re building in time to share information in a way that may not be as organic as it is in the office, but makes people feel plugged in.

What does an average day for you look like at the moment?

It’s a combination of looking after production and looking to the future.

At any given time, we have around 20 different shows in production out of our studio, so it’s about overseeing those productions, reviewing materials, looking at cuts, reading

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Peter Gal

Channel21 International | Spring 2021

Spirit Riding Free has a ‘vibrant consumer products programme’

scripts and things like that. I also work with our development team on all of our future sales, managing our development slate, studying the marketplace and talking to all the different buyers out there. We are a producer and we have to sell all of our content, so we are constantly talking to various buyers and partners and managing all those pieces of the creative business.

DWA TV has produced originals for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Apple TV+. Will this continue as Peacock, which shares a parent company with DWA in NBCUniversal, takes flight in the US and beyond?

The long-term plan is to remain platform-agnostic, but maybe not entirely. Peacock is in its early days and it is an incredibly exciting platform. Having made Madagascar: A Little Wild, Trolls: TrollsTopia and The Mighty Ones for Peacock, we will be producing more content for the platform. I love that, as an independent studio, we are able to sell to so many different buyers. It enables us to have a really broad development slate with a lot of different things tonally.

2020 was a year of reckoning for the industry in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion. How do you feel DWA TV is doing in those areas?

A year ago, I would have said we were doing really well. We were regularly thinking about representation and reflecting kids’ communities on screen that are every bit as diverse as the communities they’re growing up in.

Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous has a very diverse cast and a 13-year-old black lead who is

incredibly aspirational. Kipo & the Age of Wonderbeasts has two black leads and another who is mixed race. The lead in Gabby’s Dollhouse is biracial. We were doing a really good job thinking about on-screen diversity. The place where we’ve realised we haven’t been developing to the same degree is off screen, with showrunners and creators.

She-Ra & the Princesses of Power had a 26-year-old queer showrunner, Noelle Stevenson, running her first show, an all-female writers room and all-female directors on every episode except one. We were incredibly proud of that. But looking back on it, it was an all-white female writers’ room and all-white female directors. So this year I realise there’s so much more to do.

At the moment, there may not be enough experienced black showrunners who are ready to take on an animated series. The few we know, we will pursue and they’re going to be very in demand. We’re building talent inside the studio. In the seven years we’ve been in business, there have been interns who became assistants, storyboard revisionists, storyboard artists, directors and now supervising directors.

It’s the same thing on the writing side. We’ve had people who started as assistants who are now storyediting or running a series. Our plan is to invest in talent at all levels, including people who are just starting out.

What was the thinking behind Fast & Furious Spy Racers and why was that adult-skewing franchise chosen as the basis for an animated series for kids?

I love those movies, and the more recent ones are so fantastical and

over the top that I thought it would be incredible to do something in animation. We did our research and talked to kids and parents. I was surprised how many six-, seven- and eight-year-olds were watching those movies and how much parents felt those movies were appropriate for them. It’s because the values in them are about family, they always feature a racially diverse lead and they have strong female characters. There’s a lot in those movies that parents like for their kids.

Tell me why DWA TV is pushing into animated series aimed at adults.

How edgy or dark are these likely to be?

Adult animation used to be so niche, but that’s changing. A number of people are having success building out their animé businesses, and viewers are watching the wider range of independent films that have become available on streaming.

In the US, people are open to more and more different experiences and types of animation. In a lot of the world, there is a vibrant market in adult animation and it’s not just seen as something for kids. Animation, as a tool, will only get stronger postpandemic and I hope we’ll see a lot more variety.

We’ve had some great internal pitches from creators here at the studio that we’ve started developing.

As with all things, what we do in adult animation will be dictated by our own taste and style. What you’ll see from us won’t be the edgiest or darkest.

We’re not going to go in that direction, but we’re not going to be afraid to really push the humour to make u

“

Nickelodeon and Disney Channel had so much space to be barker channels, constantly reinforcing a show’s importance to a captive audience of kids tuning in every day.

It’s still a little unclear how to replace that in a streaming universe.

Peter Gal

DreamWorks Animation

15

16

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Peter Gal

Top: DreamWorks Animation’s recently launched Netflix hit Gabby’s Dollhouse Above: Fast & Furious Spy Racers, a kids’ animated spin-off from the popular adult action movie franchise

it work for an adult audience.

It might be a DreamWorks show or it might be branded in some other way. A show like Bob’s Burgers has broad appeal and is very funny.

It’s clearly not a kids’ show and it sits in the adult space, but it has a very positive, joyful tone. We will figure it out as we move forward. We’re in the earliest days of thinking about it.

Channel21 International | Spring 2021

How do you feel about the future of linear TV and is it possible to have a licensing and merchandising (L&M) hit by being present on a streaming service alone?

I grew up in linear TV, at Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. To be honest, I haven’t thought about it much these last few years. Its decline has been so rapid. And that’s why we’re seeing huge investment in HBO Max, and not as much in Cartoon Network. We see investment in Disney+, and not as much in Disney Channel. So I don’t know whether they become just another access point that is a key piece of marketing or whether they go away entirely.

For years, we thought about networks and ratings non-stop. One of the benefits of my job is that I hardly have to think about linear and ratings at all. But the hard part is still figuring out how to replace the promotion you got from linear TV. Nickelodeon and Disney Channel

had so much space to be barker channels, constantly reinforcing a show’s importance to a captive audience of kids tuning in every day.

It’s still a little unclear how to replace that in a streaming universe.

We’re using digital marketing and social and all of the tools at our disposal and definitely striving to have an L&M hit. The closest thing to a consumer product hit out of streaming has come from us, and that’s Spirit Riding Free, which has a vibrant consumer products programme.

Our next big effort is Gabby’s Dollhouse on Netflix. It’s an incredibly fun show, a mix of live-action and animation, about a girl who shrinks down to go inside her dollhouse. It’s immediately gone into the top 10 shows on Netflix globally, and not just kids’ shows. We’re hopeful a show like that can have the kind of impact and footprint to allow for a vibrant consumer product programme.

The pitching event

for new talents

C T 26 - 28 October 2021

Valencia (Spain)

Grimm‘s classical fairy tales retold.

© 2021 SSG Produktions- und Vertriebs GmbH

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