What is the biggest issue facing the animation industry right now?
It’s more difficult to finance adult animation in France because it is more of a niche type of animation. The target audience tends to be very young people for animation series on all the French channels. And if they did commission, they would take less of a risk by keeping budgets low.
What is your company doing in response to this?
As with all our projects, we try to adapt the type of animation to the project and to fit within a reasonable budget. We work with different countries around the world to share production costs and increase sources of funding.
How are you using generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools to make animated projects and how are these tools altering the role of the animator?
In the long term, this would save time in the production of animation and consequently costs, especially for long and tedious tasks. But in any case, it requires human intervention to give the film its unique touch, otherwise there is a risk of standardisation. Personally, we don’t yet use AI within our company; most of the time we work with outside studios.
What does the popularity of Roblox tell us about young audiences and can online social platforms be effectively used to launch new animated IP?
We don’t use Roblox, so it’s difficult for us to answer this question. It’s clear that social networks play a major role for the new generations, both in terms of broadcasting and in terms of public debate and communication. What’s more, the sector is evolving very quickly, and that can change very quickly too, but that means we have to be very attentive to all these new players.
Tell us about the project you are pitching at Cartoon Forum.
Once There Was… (6×26′) is an animated documentary series in which each episode looks back at an ecological disaster caused by human action resulting in the total or partial disappearance of a natural element. It is a coproduction with B Film in Slovakia and Momakin in Poland and has been supported by RTVS in Slovakia and TV5 Monde in France. We’re trying to offer original and innovative content, but also educational content to talk about the state of our planet, which is of interest to more and more people.
