Technicolor shows its creative side

Technicolor shows its creative side
June 08, 2010|By Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times

The longtime film processing firm is venturing into the highly competitive business of making animated TV series. For its first project, it's teaming with Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed on 'Pete & Pickles.'

The whimsical children's book "Pete & Pickles" tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two mismatched characters: a free-spirited circus elephant and a strait-laced pig.

The theme also applies to the odd pairing of the book's author, the irreverent cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, with the buttoned-down French company that has bought the rights to his book.

Technicolor, the longtime film processing company and world's largest producer of DVDs, is venturing into an improbable new business of producing animated TV series, starting with an adaptation of "Pete & Pickles" and, eventually, feature films.

It marks the latest move by Technicolor, whose parent company was formerly known as Thomson, to adapt to the digital revolution that is reshaping Hollywood and evolve from a provider of back-office services to the studios into a creator of content.

"Technicolor has a 95-year history of helping creative talent realize their vision," said Tim Sarnoff, president of the company's newly formed digital production division. "We believe that taking the next step of putting some of our skin in the game is a logical extension."

The venture is risky: Children's animation is a notoriously unpredictable business, subject to the whims of young viewers, and dominated by Disney and Nickelodeon.

But Technicolor isn't starting from scratch and already has partnerships with major producers in the field. The company's India studio has built up an animation-for-hire facility where most of the work on "Pete & Pickles" will be done.

"It makes perfect sense for them because they are so heavily steeped in media already and they have the resources to start investing and creating intellectual properties that they can both produce and exploit," said Ron Diamond, president of Animation World Network, an online publishing group.

Leading the effort is Sarnoff, the former head of the visual effects house Sony Pictures Imageworks, who was recruited by Technicolor last year. Since then, he has been assembling a team of high-profile animation executives, hiring industry veterans Jean MacCurdy, a former president of Warner Bros. Animation who helped launch the Kids WB network, and Fonda Snyder, a former Disney Channel executive and co-founder of Storyopolis Productions, the family entertainment company backed by billionaire Paul Allen.