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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. The new medium of television introduced in the 60's drew audiences away from the traditional movie theatres. The 1960's introduced an impressive number of kids animated films; 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. According to the Producer To Producer Book, 2nd Edition, animated films have now outstripped other genres in home video and DVD sales. 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. All manner of products aimed at the kids market now spin off from animated movies. Film producers and product manfacturers now work hand in hand. 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.
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Michael Trigg of You N Me Productions has joined up with Shogee Inc. www.shogee.com to produce Greanwold's World.Greanwold www.greanwold.com is the brain child of Michael Trigg of You N Me Productions Corp, a Vancouver, Canada based company.
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