Billion Dollar Animation Industry
Billion Dollar Animation Industry
The Second Golden Age of Animation is creating enormous revenues from both box office gross to billions of dollars in sales generated by all manner of kids’ products spinning off from Intellectual Properties aimed at the kiddy market, products that range from the bizarre (Spongebob) to the sublime (Harry Potter).
When was the First Golden Age of Animation? This was a period in American animation history beginning in 1928 that began with the introduction of sound cartoons. It continued into the early 1960s when the introduction of this new medium of television animation drew audiences away from cinemas. It was during these years that an impressive number of Animation Properties came into being; such characters as Tom and Jerry, Superman, Woody Woodpecker, Felix the Cat as well as a huge range of Disney characters.
Walt Disney's first films; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi came into being during this era.
What then is the Second Golden Age of Animation? It is happening today. Traditional animation, called cell animation, had been the standard since the 1920’s. Very labor intensive, cell animation was the backbone of the Disney corporation production facility and other companies such as Hanna Barbera. The introduction of computers, while slow to take hold, has completely changed the face of animation production taking animation from two dimensional characters to three dimensional images that are more realistic, easier to manipulate and store and most importantly, are the backbone of the huge video gaming market.
Animated films have far outstripped other genres in home video and DVD sales in the last fifteen years with retail dollars now capturing 32% of total sales, far ahead of second place comedy at 20% according to the Producer To Producer Book, 2nd Edition. In recent years, the licensing and merchandising industry driven by animated television series targeted at children has performed beyond most industry expectations. An excellent case in point, the children’s craze, Pokemon, surpassed accumulated worldwide sales of $10.0 Billion by 2001. Licensing and Merchandising revenues are expected to exceed $100 Billion annually by the year 2010 fueled by such monster hits as Shrek 2 - $881 Million Dollars, Finding Nemo - $865 Million and The Incredibles - $624 Million to name just three.
The target market for children's television and films is the 50 million plus 4 - 12 year old North American kids whose buying power for toys, games and puzzles was approximately U.S.$13.4 billion per year in the nineties and now in excess of $200 Billion a year. The secondary markets are Europe, Asia and the Pacific region where North American companies have traditionally experienced success with many movie driven properties.
Kids buying power grew 12% over the 90’s and is expected to continue at a double digit growth rate well into the 2000’s. So dramatic was this growth of the Kids market that marketers dubbed the 90's as the "Decade of the Child". In response to this phenomenon, more and more toys, clothes, food and entertainment products are being developed for this huge and growing market. The companies involved in producing children's live and animated productions have now identified this Kid’s market as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and now team up with toy companies and other manufacturers to exploit this lucrative ancillary market with an unimaginable number of products ranging from downloadable clips for cell phones to video games to social networking websites.
Computer generated films are now the driving force behind the enormous jump in sales of toys, electronic games and the multitude of other products aimed at the kid and tween market. items.
What does the future hold in this new Golden Age of Animation? Producers, manufacturers, distributors and kids are always on the lookout for that next new product. What will that be? As usual, it’s anybody’s guess. Who would have thought that some years ago, adults would be fist fighting over something called Cabbage Patch Dolls? Whatever the next hit is, it will no doubt be spawned from the depths of a computer chip.
The Author and Associates
Michael Trigg is CEO of You N Me Productions Corp, a Vancouver Canada entertainment company. You N Me Productions has joint ventured with Media Kitchen I.N. Teractive and Worlds Away Productions Ltd of New York to produce a new children’s website entitled Greanwold’s World.
Resources
Greanwold’s World www.greanwold.com is the environment of Greanwold and his Minosaur friends, the newest children’s property in the kids international market place.
Michael Trigg
http://www.articlesbase.com/movies-articles/billion-dollar-animation-industry-749076.html
Is this a good essay? Any suggestions?
IF YOU GOING TO EDIT THIS FOR ME, THANK YOU. PLEASE DON’T BE CRUEL!!!!
For a country to achieve great success in a particular sector, it is of great importance for said country to invest in education, either in the private sector or the public sector, thereby producing knowledge workers. Canada, including many other countries such as Japan and India have adopted this strategy and utilizing it to their own advantage, have dominated many industries; some of which being Gaming, Robotics, and Pharmaceuticals.
It was only a few decades ago, when the gaming industry was first born. It was the birth of Nintendo, Sega, Dreamcaste, etc. Today the gaming industry has escalated into one of the biggest and wealthiest markets in the world. “According to IDC(International Data Coporation), gaming was a 26.6 billion dollar worldwide industry in 2006 and it is only prospering.” This industry is now making more than Hollywood annually, which was never seen possible. Countries like Canada specifically, have looked at this industry and saw it as a big asset, and so invested in it. Canada has taken advantage of this opportunity and now has become the leader in Gaming. How? Canada didn’t just buy Gaming companies from other countries and such, they went for a more logical and more beneficial route in the long run, and they invested in education, producing knowledge workers, who in the long run established their own gaming operations, which have become a global brand, such as Montreal’s UBISOFT. The Canadian government have invested millions into gaming industries and education and in return receive 1000’s of jobs. “The government of Ontario…managed to lure Ubisoft with an investment of C$263 million ($227 million US) over 10 years to help set up the publisher’s new digs. For its part, Ubisoft will be spending more than half a billion dollars in the new development studio, which will create over 800 jobs.” Ubisoft, a known global gaming brand, is looking to expand, “unveiling an ambitious six-year, $451-million expansion to its operations. The plan will see Ubisoft’s ranks in Quebec swell from 1,600 employees to 3,000 by the end of 2013, with 500 of those new jobs earmarked for a recently created in-house animation studio.” Not only are they expanding operations they are looking to produce movies, "We’re going to take the next few years to learn how to make movies," said Ubisoft Montreal communications director Cedric Orvoine. The step taken by Canadian Gaming companies to become a global leader has helped the economy significantly, in the sense that it provides lots of jobs, and brings in lots of revenue and in these rough times Canadian businesses need to step up, and do their part to help end the recession in Canada. “The Canadian gaming industry generates $14 billion in revenues a year and directly supports more than 50,000 jobs in Canada.” Not many Canadians are aware that the gaming industry gives back to the Canadian community, but in a PMG poll it is highlighted that the Canadian gaming industry actually contributes $7 billion to governments and charities and invests about $75 million annually on responsible gaming research and treatment. These polls themselves justify how important these industries are to the Canadian economy and to Canada. We can all honestly say that Canadian gaming industries ultimately give back more than how much we invest into them.
Today, we live in a new age, a society where technology is much more advanced than it has ever been. We no longer break are backs doing tasks that require hard labour; instead we have robots that perform tasks efficiently and conveniently. Robotics, what is it? Robotics is the engineering science and technology of robots, and their design, manufacture, application, and structural disposition. It has only been about a century since Henry Ford proposed and used the idea of an assembly line, where robots were used to build cars faster and better. From their, we have come to an age where we can produce robots that can walk, talk, and follow commands. “There are robots serving as receptionists, vacuuming office corridors, spoon-feeding the elderly. They serve tea, greet company guests and chatter away at public technology displays.” We have come here with the help of the Japanese, who have invested billions of dollars in the education of knowledge workers and have funded many robotic projects, “In the past several years, the government has funded a plethora of robotics-related efforts, including some $42 million for the first phase of a humanoid robotics project, and $10 million a year between 2006 and 2010 to develop key robot technologies.” It is evident that Japan is the most dominating country in robotics, which is due their commitment and dedication to this field. Some ask why Japan takes that much of a risk, investing billions in this field, and in order to answer that question you must look at the statistics; According to Hiroko Tabuchi of the associated
make a concluding statement. "In conclusion…." "Reviewing these arguments…" it’s just basically a restatement of your thesis.
References :