"Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf"

Chinese animation production for 2008 totalled a record of 131,042 minutes, a 28 percent increase over the previous year.

However, many productions are not as well-received by the children as their foreign counterparts for the lack of originality in the image design and story line.

Last week's Fantasy China 2009 was an exposition of international cartoons and games. Industry professionals brainstormed ideas to help revive China's animation industry.

Lance Diaresco, Disney's vice president of marketing for China, says the economic downturn is a concern but the Chinese market still has great potential for wonderful original stories.

Disney has worked with Chinese teams on heartwarming films targeting the Chinese audience, "Trail of the Panda" and "The Secret of the Magic Gourd." The Disney brand owns about 5,000 retail stores in China.

"The key strategy for Walt Disney is creativity, technology and global expansion," Diaresco says. "But a great story-telling is always the foundation of our business, and emotion is the currency of brands."

Pierre Cheung, BBC worldwide senior business manager for Asia, says its international business in China is booming.

Winning designs of captivating 12 animals of the zodiac, chosen from among 27,850 entries in a recent competition. The winning designs will be issued as a special postage stamp series.

"It is necessary to conduct market research and surveys to know and reach your target group," he says. "Then your creative work on the characters and stories will be more effective and customer-oriented."

China's Ministry of Culture has put forth an ambitious timeline: five to 10 years to become a global animation powerhouse.

That will take more than spellbinding cartoon creations that are uniquely Chinese and please a domestic audience. It will take time - successful animations don't happen overnight.

Good animation and artistry must be nurtured.

Industry experts say the big problem is a premature rush to market by producers who are animated first and foremost by profit and quick returns, not necessarily excellence.

It usually takes four or five years to produce a first-class feature animation. But many impatient Chinese investors don't want to take the risk of such a long-term process.

Wang Liuyi, an animation expert, says he was surprised by the box office success of the recent feature "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" - the marketing was haphazard compared with the Hollywood animation blockbuster "Kung Fu Panda," which made 100 million yuan (US$14.6 million) of box office in China.

He says Chinese animators and producers can learn from Japan and Hollywood, especially in their creative teams for original stories and their marketing and industry chain.

"Hollywood has a precise and long industry chain as well as a mature operating mechanism," he says.

It nurtures the animations' originality and high-quality artistry, he says. Big returns come not just from ticket sales, he adds, but also from advertising and by-products.

(Shanghai Daily July 9, 2009)