Cartoon Network, the home of popular kids’ cartoons such as Ben 10 and Teen Titans, is looking for African talents in a renewed drive to inject new innovative content from a local perspective in its programming.
As part of plans to achieve this, the network announced the Cartoon Network Africa Creative Lab, an African creative completion designed to bring innovative, local short form content to Africa through its channel and digital platforms.
A statement sent to BusinessDay on the announcement explained that the initiative will encourage African talents, creators, writers, graphic artists, animation students and anyone who loves kids’ content, to explore their creative, animation and production talents and have the chance to produce a short-form animated comedy.
“It is actually a big deal for Nigerian animators and studios having Cartoon Network invest in the local talent we have here,” Ayodele Eleba, CEO of Spoof Animation and Founder of Lagos Comic Con said.
Eleba said the investment acknowledges the mileage African animation has reached and the growth in demand.
“Cartoon Network’s involvement in Africa through the Cartoon Network Creative Lab initiative means more exposure and appreciation for African stories told by African animators and storytellers,” Mbuotidem Johnson, CEO of Basement Animation and chief coordinator and founder of Animation Nigeria added.
Potential participants from the age of 18 and above or any African-based company can submit a one-minute to three-minute creative short project which must fall in the comedy genre and fit with Cartoon Network’s values of random, irreverent, smart and contemporary humour. Entries submission will end August 31, 2018.
Judges will short list ten projects in September and the selected local creators will get the opportunity to pitch their work to Cartoon Network Africa’s content programming team. A winner and two runners-up will be unveiled at DISCOP Johannesburg at the end of the year.
“We have been supporting the advancement of new and emerging local animation talent through activations like the DISCOP 2016 Animation Pitching Programme, where the winning project, Cloud Life, has been traveling through the Turner group and is now in a development process with the Turner Asia Pacific production team,” Ariane Suveg, head of programming and acquisition Turner Kids Africa said. “We are now looking for content that has the potential to be produced locally and are honoured to be supporting local African animation talent through the Cartoon Network Africa Creative Lab. We look forward to seeing the entries and hope to see the winners flourish in their career as content creators, following the footsteps of some of Cartoon Network’s greatest talents.”
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