A Korean production took second place at a world-renowned animation event based in France, according to the Korea Trade Promotion and Investment Agency (KOTRA) on Wednesday (Nov. 18).
"Canimal", a 3D animation for pre-schoolers, jointly produced by Korea's VOOZ Co., Ltd, and Spain's BRB International S.A., took second place among the top 30 programs selected by MIP JUNIOR 2009. A total of 40,325 animation series from 618 companies in 59 nations competed in the latest competition.
MIP JUNIOR 2009 is the largest kids' programming and screening event in the world. Set in Cannes, it regularly screens over 1,000 programs from its digital library and attracts buyers from over 40 nations with conferences and seminars.
The latest evaluation is based on responses from buyers through a digital inquiry that left Canimal with the second highest number of hits. The results for the top 30 programs in terms of hits, buyers and screenings were unveiled only recently.
Canimal -- a hybrid of "can" (as in container) and "animal" -- is a five-minute, 52-episode animation series. Vooz Company employees came up with the idea three years ago while eating instant noodles and canned tuna for lunch one day.
"Buyers seemed to have liked the unusual encounter between animal characters and tin cans", KOTRA explained. "We submitted the series for a trial response and certainly didn't expect this". The cute and simple designs of cats and dogs have also attributed to the latest feat, KOTRA noted.
Aimed toward children from age three to six, the show is expected to air starting from the latter half of next year in Korea and other countries. "We've already concluded licensing agreements with companies from the U.S., Mexico and Brazil since last year. We're receiving calls from Europe and Asia too", Kim Yoo-gyeong, the head of Vooz said. Vooz is already well known abroad for another unique animation called "Pucca" that features Koreanized Chinese characters. The Pucca characters that started out as a flash animation in 2000 have advanced to over 150 nations as of 2008.
For the past few years Korea has been quite popular in animation series targeted for pre-schoolers: "Pororo the Little Penguin" has been exported to 81 nations and "Iron Kid" has aired on major European channels.
Another animation "Noonbory and the Super 7", jointly produced by Daewon Media and Canada's Cookie Jar Entertainment, has been broadcast both on EBS in Korea and CBS Kids Block in the U.S. since last September.
Noonbory is the fourth locally produced animation series to be picked up by U.S. broadcasters, following Cubix, Iron Kid and Magi-nation.
By Kim Hee-sung
Korea.net Staff Writer
