The buzzwords at this year’s mip-tv animation booths will be ‘mixed media’ as studios undertake more and more blending of live action, 2D, 3D, clay animation, puppetry, cel or Flash animation.

‘We will continue to see creative new forms on the screen,’ says Louis Fournier, president of youth and animation at Montreal-based TVA International. ‘As long as they work to support the characters and the storytelling, they will have success.’

Multimedia and Internet tie-ins are multiplying with series like LandSeas from Cellar Door Productions having a strong interactive component. Here, children can create stories and characters, draw on the website and chat with other children, while producers take the children’s tales and characters and integrate them into the series.

Decode Entertainment, famed for Angela Anaconda, is promoting the highly interactive 2D series Undergrads, to air on mtv in the u.s. and Teletoon in Canada. Undergrads Online is a multimedia experience developed alongside the series, and features Flash-animated series outtakes, interactive games, character home pages and more.

Nelvana co-ceo Michael Hirsh says, ‘the [animation] market is growing internationally, and there is great demand for quality product that uses the latest technology and that ties into the Internet and to cd-roms, all areas that Nelvana is focusing on.’

Along with the new futuristic series Medabot and Dr. Doolittle, Nelvana will showcase Pecola, a coproduction with Japan’s Milky Cartoon and Yomiko Advertising, using state-of-the art cgi.

International buyers still want programming for ages eight to 12. tva’s Fournier says, ‘the market is looking for that [age group], with kids as the protagonists. Preschool is more difficult now.’

But some innovative animated projects are vying for younger viewers. The Hippo Tub Co., from Balmur Entertainment and Evening Sky Productions, mixes 2D, 3D and cgi in a show for ages five to eight. ‘Despite any high-end animation, a series’ concept and the storytelling is still of utmost importance,’ says Evening Sky’s president and ceo, David Corbett. ‘We tend to have the same sensibility as many European markets in terms of children’s programming, with gentler, more ethically-based storylines.’