MIPCOM 2007 will open for business on Oct. 8 at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France for five days of conferences, networking, awards, and deals, deals, deals. To help Canadian animation producers and broadcasters separate the wheat from the chaff, the following are five of the coolest international projects going to market in search of partners and sales.

(In one case, Nelvana seems to have the leg up.) For more information on this year’s event, go to www.mipcom.com.

FREAKY FRANKENBIKE PATROL
Premise: A gang of middle-schoolers fight suburban boredom by tricking out their trusty two-wheelers, ducking a crew of teen toughs who troll the streets in a ’70s-era airbrushed van, and exploring a mysterious network of underground tunnels snaking beneath their neat-as-a-pin town.
Coproducers: Chicago, Illinois-based Eat Your Lunch,
L.A.’s PorchLight Entertainment and Jetix Europe
Style: Mostly Flash-animated, with some elements rendered in CGI and then output to Flash.
The painterly design work on FFP comes from California graphic artist Michael Fleming.
Format: 52 x 11
Demo: kids eight to 12
Budget: roughly US$250,000 per half-hour
Financing needs: One more copro partner and international presales
Status: A short animation test is done (check it out at //eatyourlunch.com/stuff/frankenbike2.html), and scripting is well underway.
Delivery: late 2009 or early 2010

BADLY DRAWN ROY
Premise: JAM Media is expanding a dryly funny 22-minute short film – a one-off mockumentary about an animated boy born into a live-action world (viewable online at www.jammedia.ie/badlydrawnroy) that it made for kicks in 2006 – into a full-fledged series. The original is currently racking up awards on the film festival circuit, and when it was accidentally entered into the MIPCOM Junior screenings last year, the interest it drew from broadcasters convinced JAM to expand the story to a series of eps revolving around the theme of what it’s like to be different.
Producer: JAM Media out of Dublin, Ireland
Style: Each ep will be shot and edited in live-action HD, aiming for a handheld documentary style. Then hand-drawn 2D animation elements will be dropped in using digital compositing techniques.
Format: 15 x 26
Demo: kids eight to 12 and families
Budget: US$5.7 million
Financing needs: A commissioning broadcaster, and presales and distribution advances to top up to 100%. JAM expects to be able to tap into Irish funding bodies and tax incentives to raise 25% of the budget.
Status: In development. A pilot script and some animation tests are in the works.
Delivery: December 2009

MY NEIGHBOUR IS AN EVIL GENIUS
Premise: The show centers on Kirk Carter and a sinister boy who moves in next door. Viktor Strange is an evil genius bent on world domination, and he spends his time inventing laser-shooting robots and modified vampire vegetables to help him achieve it. Kirk is wise to his neighbor’s endgame, and with the rest of the town hoodwinked into thinking Viktor is a sweet, innocent boy, it’s up to him to stop the madness any way he can.
Producer: London, England’s Cosgrove Hall Films
Style: Earmarked for production in Toon Boom Harmony, Cosgrove managing director Anthony Utley describes this show as ‘2½-D’ because it will take advantage of the software’s multi-planing and focus-shifting capabilities to deliver a style that’s not entirely flat.
Format: 52 x 10
Demo: kids seven to 11
Budget: about US$8.1 million
Financing needs: Cosgrove is hoping to lock in a coproducer at MIPCOM, and will be talking to Nelvana first, since the two companies have worked together in the past on Roger to the Rescue, and since the Canuck studio has experience producing in Toon Boom Harmony. If Nelvana comes in and brings a Canadian broadcaster and funding with it, then the plan is to go after presales and distribution advances. Utley thinks pan-regional networks like Jetix and Cartoon Network may be interested in the show, as well as CBBC in the U.K.
Status: Still in very early development, and this is by design. Utley wants to leave room for a logical copro work split, and he also anticipates any partner Cosgrove picks up for the project to help shape the concept to suit their territorial sensibilities. The goal is to bring a one-minute animatic to MIPCOM.
Delivery: fall 2009

TOBY’S TOY CIRCUS
Premise: A shy seven-year-old transforms into a circus ringmaster when he touches a button on his magical carousel nightlight. But this isn’t any ordinary circus – the performers are Toby’s toys, which come to life and band together to put on a big-top extravaganza at the end of every episode. There’s toy robot Thor, the resident strongman; Giddy the painted horse, who takes a break from the round-about tedium of the carousel to perform as a trick horse; and Jango the wind-up one-man band.
Coproducers: London, England’s Target Entertainment and Komixx Entertainment, a new company headed up by former Ealing Animation creative director Richard Randolph, ex-Cosgrove Hall art director Bridget Appleby and writer Andy Yerkes
Style: stop-frame animation
Format: 52 x 10
Demo: preschool
Budget: US$150,000 per episode
Financing needs: The partners are hoping to secure a U.K. commission to put an animation test into production, and then the plan is to top up with presales.
Status: A bible, one script penned by Yerkes (best-known for his work on Bear in the Big Blue House and Pocoyo) and several story outlines are in the can. Target is planning to commission another script out-of-house to try another writer’s voice in the mix.
Delivery: late 2009

THE 7Cs
Premise: Young Will Gamble accidentally awakens an ancient enchanted sword that leads him to a majestic tall ship buried in his backyard, and in the blink of an eye, he and his sister Cece find themselves embroiled in a seafaring adventure in the Bermuda Triangle, where a crack in the space-time continuum has been trapping everything from pillaging pirates and WWII flying aces to robotic marauders from Mars and dinosaurs. Will recruits a motley crew of the Triangle’s strange inhabitants and attempts to find a way out.
Producer: Seoul, Korea-based SAMG Animation, co-developed with L.A.’s Man of Action Studios
Style: high-end CGI
Format: 26 x 30
Demo: kids seven to 12
Budget: US$375,000 to US$400,000 per ep
Financing needs: While SAMG’s top priority is to partner with a copro broadcaster in the U.S., it hopes to retain Asian rights. All other territories are up for grabs. A couple of proposals are under review, but no deals have been signed yet.
Status: The project will be well-represented in MIPCOM pitches by a solid bible, a glossy booklet showcasing the basic concept, characters and art, a 22-minute script and a 2.5-minute trailer.
Delivery: fall 2009
A version of this story appears in the October issue of KidScreen