Cartoon Network contest seeks for African content

What you need to know:

  • Over the years, we have built many great relationships with African creators and networks

Cartoon Network this month came up with a new initiative to localise content, which led to the launch of Cartoon Network Africa Creative Lab, an African creative competition designed to bring innovative, local short form content to Africa through its channel, and digital platforms, while reinforcing the local relevance of the brand. In an interview with The Beat’s Salome Gregory, Turner Kids’ Channels in Africa’s senior programming and acquisitions manager Ariane Suveg says the initiative will encourage African talents: creators, writers, graphic artists, animation students ... in fact anyone who loves children’s content, to explore their creative, animation and production talents. Below are excerpts of the interview.

What is cartoon network lab about?

Cartoon Network Creative Lab is one of our most recent initiatives addressing the gap in locally relevant content which offers a viewing experience that resonates with its African audience. Our ambition is to push these kinds of initiatives, building long lasting relationships with local talents.

Over the years, we have built many great relationships with African creators and networks. We have led multiple interesting initiatives over the years, learning how the market works. We now feel that running competition like this allows us to reach creators and talents outside of the general structures, bigger production companies and established networks, and for talents to get the confidence to reach out to us. It is time for unique African stories to be seen on our channel.

What kind of content are you looking for with this initiative?

At Turner we pride ourselves in our diverse and original content. We are not looking for something that fits a specific pattern or based on certain criteria for the Creative Lab competition. Rather we are encouraging creators to challenge the status quo with something new, irreverent, smart and unexpected … something that will resonate with our African audience.

We are constantly on the lookout for new projects that have never been done before – we want them to wow us!

What happens after the lab?

Two years ago, Cartoon Network made our first call for African animators. Cape Town-based Punch Monkey Studio brought amazing creativity and originality to their winning entry at the “Turner Kid’s Pitching Competition” at DISCOP 2016, with a project called Cloud Life. The project has been traveling through the Turner group and is now in a development process with the Turner Asia Pacific production team!

This just reinforces our need to invest in local content and our commitment to further mentoring talent in the African animation industry. We hope to see the winners of this initiative to flourish in their career as content creators.

How is this initiative likely to bridge the gaps in story telling especially among African children?

This initiative addresses a gap in locally relevant content, and our fans are demanding stories which offers a viewing experience that resonates with their own lives.

Our work in Africa, and the general international film market today, confirms that African rooted content and unique storytelling is relevant and appealing to a global audience. This is a wonderful and inspiring strength, and a driving force for all our work in Africa!

Who can apply to participate in this project and what are the time frameworks?

The initiative encourages African talents in general: creators, writers, graphic artists, animation students etc. to produce a short-form animated comedy piece between 1-3 minutes. The core target should be 6 to 12 years old, with an English dialogue.

All kinds of humor, including irreverence and randomness is welcomed, with the comedy being driven by engaging characters and unexpected stories.

The piece should portray positive values such as the kids spirit, kindness, diversity and never-ending imagination, with a unique graphism based on any animation technics . The presentation of the piece should include a pitch, the main heroes’ description, storyline(s) and graphic intention, as well as any additional material accepted. The submissions should be submitted via Dropbox on www. CartoonNetworkAfrica.com/CreativeLab. Ten projects will be short-listed in September, and the local creators will get the opportunity to pitch their work to Cartoon Network Africa’s content programming team.

Can you briefly describe the relationship between Turner and African audiences in the past decade?

Cartoon Network is the strongest Pay-TV kids channel on the African market, with many shows beloved by African families. This is definitely due to our hard work and dedicated localization strategy, our passion to listen to our audience and staying locally relevant. Cartoon Network’s superior content is distributed across 56 countries in Africa, and our localisation strategy that identifies the cultural differences of our African markets, and which we have implemented for the past four years, has undoubtedly boosted our brand value across the continent.

Creativity is at the heart of the DNA of our brand and in the past, Cartoon Network Africa has included innovative local initiatives. South Africa’s hip pop sensation, Toya Delazy, lent her voice to the newly revealed fourth Powerpuff Girl, Bliss for Cartoon Network Africa.

We have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to build long-lasting relationships with numerous influential networks, studios and animation associations in Africa, and are looking forward to future new encounters. We are fascinated by how the African film-making community brings creatives together from all over the continent and we want to continue tapping into the inspiring pan-African talent through Cartoon Network Creative Lab.

At the end of the day how is your association with DISCOP going to change the content platform in Africa?

Turner has been partnering with DISCOP since 2016, when we collaborated with Animation South Africa (ASA) as the official sponsor of the first-ever “Animation Lounge”. That same year, we also hosted the “Turner Kid’s Pitching Competition”, a first strong initiative to bring forward African talent.

Last year, we sponsored the “African Animation Network (AAN) Village”, boosting AAN’s efforts to develop animation talent in Africa. We expanded our presence and hosted panels with various African organizations, discussing the opportunities and challenges faced in promoting African animation productions at local and international levels. Cartoon Network enjoy a strong following on the continent, and we continually strive to create a viewing experience that resonates with its African audience.

We believe that the collaboration between Turner and DISCOP is an essential way for us to get straight to the heart of the new and fast growing African animation industry. Its market is evidence that the African animation community is blooming, and we have built many important relationships there.

At last year’s “Animation Village” we truly felt a change in the air, with new ambition and talent pushing forward and creating new structures to how the community collaborates and communicates. We appreciate, and are inspired by, the initiatives created in collaboration between DISCOP and the Annecy festival in France, such as “Animation du Monde”, pushing for exchange between animators across the world.