Pitch competition looks for creativity

The workshop and presentation parts of Animation Project Pitch and Catch 2010, part of this year\'s Shanghai TV Festival, were held on Wednesday.

 

The pitch competition aims to establish an exchange platform for original Chinese animations so investors can tap the potential of the domestic creative industry, to expand the animation market and to open up the entire industrial chain.

 

The core concept is pre-selling, a technique used around the world to showcase ideas before production and thus reduce production risks, according to Zhang Tianxiao, one of the competition\'s initiators and pre-selection committee members.

 

The competition pre-selection committee picked up 20 Excellent Projects and selected 10 Nomination Projects as the finalists. During the workshop Wednesday morning, the 10 finalists practiced their project presentation in front of Lu Shengzhang, the former dean of the Animation School of Communication University of China and one of the final judges. He provided feedback. Lu also shared his perspectives about the international and Chinese animation industries.

 

Each of the 10 finalists have distinctive subjects and target different groups of people from adults to kids. Also, with the convergence of three networks many started choosing the Internet and cell phones as their main media.
Moreover, derivatives of the cartoons have become a source of profit for many projects.

 

"He idea occurred to me when I first saw a human-shaped steel wire," said Zhu Xianfeng, whose  "Wisdom Steel" features a character made of steel wire and promotes a lifestyle based on nature. Targeting the Otakus prevalent in the current society, he planned to broadcast his animation on the Internet and profit from some steel-wired derivatives.

 

Entering its third year, the pitch competition this year has attracted not only independent animation lovers and students, but also some large-scale animation companies.

 

"I\'m looking for originality and something distinctively Chinese,"said judge Duncan Rouleau, a founding member of Man of Action Studio in US. " It is impressive to have seen the development of Chinese animation in only 10 years."

 

The seminar “Animation for Life, Direction of Trend” and the Award Ceremony, as parts of the pitch competition, take place Thursday. The Most Creative Project and the Most Market-Promising Project will get 50,000 RMB and 300,000 RMB respectively. The rest will get 10,000 RMB each.