Chennai based 2D animation studio Dessin Works is eagerly awaiting this year’s MIPCOM. The studio has plenty of reasons to look forward to its 5th consecutive visit to the event.
Bucking the usual trend in Indian animation, that of building business around outsourced assignments, Dessin Works plans to pitch not one, not two but three original shows at MIPCOM this year!
Even though a few Indian studios have got into original IP recently, it is still quite a rarity in Indian animation.
Speaking to Animation ‘xpress, Dessin Works Directors Rajini C & Clifford Raj shared,”We are eagerly looking forward to this year’s MIPCOM as there’s a lot of content and concepts that we are planning to pitch. We are going into the event with 3 original IPs. We will be looking for distributors and buyers for Dollaly Jinks (26 episodes x 11mins – France territory already sold) which is already complete and pre sales for the other two”
On being asked to elaborate on the two new shows, Clifford quipped,”Jelly Bean Land (26 episodes x 4mins) is a co production with Brazilian studio Moonshot Pictures and we will be looking for doing the pre sales. Space Stage 3047 is ready in terms of the pre production and we are scouting for co pro partners”
One of the most interesting things about the Dessin Works’ shows is the fact that though produced locally, the storylines (by Julia Fairley and Padma Nagarajan), characters, dialogues and voicing (Voicetoons, U.S) are all done keeping global audiences in mind.
Targeted primarily at 7-12 year olds, Dollaly Jinks is the story of Chip, a new kid in town and his friendly neighbor Stolly who’s a professional inventor with the mind of an eight year old. It is a humorous series with funny inventions, and funny instances but with a happy ending.
“The message of the show is how happy you can make yourself if everything you do benefits others rather than hurt them” remarked Rajini.
“Of the entire cast in Dollaly… my favorite is Janice…the sane and focussed one and my favorite episode is SNOW ZILLA where Stolly invents a machine which would make or break ice. Chip wants to use it to avenge but ends up using it to help his ever irritating neighbour, and feels happy to have done that in the end” she added.
“I must say that both the writers Padma who did the initial research and the first 13 episodes and Julia who wrote the next 13 have been brilliant and have managed to get out the essence of each character” she further added.
Being co produced with Brazilian studio Moon Shot Pictures, Jelly Bean Land is targeted at pre schoolers. It revolves around a kingdom where everything is made of food. The local kids ski on big vanilla ice cream mountains and have fun jumping on jelly trampolines. They use super market carts instead of cars and houses are made of different eatables such as candy bars, cheese and even pop corn. The orchards have exotic fruits like banapples and orandeberries and all other mixtures of fruits. There’s rivers of rich yummy chocolate where they go rafting on their doughnut boats.
The Dessin Works duo are also very Gung Ho about Space Stage 3047 which is targeted at teenagers. The hook is that of Theatre, Adventure and Laughter in 30th Century space.
“With the experience Dollaly Jinks has given us. We are now moving into the development of Space Stage..The story plot is developed and the characterizations have been done and the episodic breakdowns are ready. Last MIP we had tested the concept and got very encouraging feedback, a lot of studios and potential partners were hooked with the original idea of theatrics involved” said Clifford.
“The best part of Space Stage… is that it involves characters from all of the globe, one of almost every region who come together..to study the art of theatre” quipped Rajini .
From being a studio that started off with just 5 people, Dessin Works has come a long way. “It was our dream to do our own animation content right since college” beamed Rajini, speaking of her and her Husband’s animated ambitions. “We had infact set a goal that we’d start on our own at 35 but god-willing we were able to do it at 31 and after an initial struggle for the past three years things are finally looking good”
So how did a small studio in downtown Chennai suddenly dare to dream and create global IP? “There are no big investors with us, no big hype, nothing. We are simpletons wanting to do well and it is truly and fully the people around us, who have made it possible. A lot of credit goes to Naagarajan of Pyramid Entertainment who gave us ideas on how to go about kick starting our studio in a bigger way, he was the first one to guide us towards towards the potential of creating our own IP for international markets, he also introduced us to the MIP market” shared Clifford.
“The first time we particpated at MIPCOM things were pretty vague for us and we were actually looking for a service job? Absorbing whatever we saw around us, we were convinced that we could straightaway pursue our dream of original content, because if done right we had the entire market as potential partners and buyers” reminisced Rajini.
“By the third time at MIPCOM we had taken 13 episodes and to our great relief there were takers. We are really happy to see that several producers are interested in our next concept. We are also getting offers for co-prod, especially in pre-production and post-production, except the scripting” she continued.
“MIPCOM is an excellent platform to understand the requirement in terms of entertainment, and gives us a wide scope to expose ourself and our talents, capacities and passion. But it is needed that one’s presence is felt continuously, one market or 2 markets are just not sufficient, it is after 4 times that you have people seeing you when they start talking real business” quipped Clifford.
“Amongst the most important things that studios abroad look for in an Indian partner is consistency” he added.
MAKING THE MOST OF MIPCOM
Talking about how Dessin Works makes the most of its MIPCOM, Rajini shared,” Once we register, we send mailers to the database that we collect from the MIPCOM site. Next we follow up on the responses that we get, but prior to that we study the companies and how relevant they are to us. No point in just having the diary filled with appointments, that will not justify your cause. It depends on the focus of the company, We divide between selling and co-producing”
“Someday we plan to have our own booth there” she added.
We really wish that there were guidelines on pricing and some pricing standards that we could follow. Most of us Indian Studios are so busy surviving individually, that we forget about the larger picture about how we as India could do better if we could have a standard format.
As the conversation drew to a close, the Dessin Works duo shared a parting thought…
“Sometimes studios with great investment model can fail…and why?
Sometimes studios with a basic investment..could grow..and again why?
Don’t you think the underlying factor is passion for work…rather than for money?
Money & all other things of course follow good work. And this MIPCOM we plan to promote our ideas and good work, to the entire globe”