Show me the money
At present scripts have been completed for a PandaMonium series with 13 episodes of 22 minutes each, and the detailed work such as a full storyboard has been completed for the first episode. Because the core competencies of the RollCoCo team are in planning and design-character design, plot development and scene design-the detailed artwork and filming needs to be contracted out.
The cost of producing a complete animated film is so high-an estimated US$200,000 per episode of PandaMonium, or several tens of millions of NT dollars for a full series-that it is way beyond the resources of a small start-up company like RollCoCo. Chauven Tarng admits that because of this he is still "evading" the issue of actual filming. The project has been "gestating" for more than two years now, and the child is taking ever clearer shape, but when will it really be born? This is still an unknown quantity.
To overcome this impasse and dispel the anxiety it causes, and to ensure that their work has not been in vain, RollCoCo set up another company, TVbean, to concentrate in the management and licensing of the PiPi Panda product range. As well as supplying downloadable animations for mobile phones to telecoms companies in Taiwan and Japan, in December they also signed a licensing agreement with a mainland Chinese telecoms operator. Other projects they are working on include designs to go on children's scooters, and a six-volume fairytale picture book series.
Jack and the beanstalk
By turning the orientation from the creative process to commercialization, the establishment of TVbean has gradually expanded the company's field of activity, on the one hand by its becoming an agency for visual artists, and on the other by strengthening the company's back-end filming and production capabilities.
"We hope we can build a bridge between creativity and business, to assist original creators in developing and extending their work," says Lin Hsiu-lu. Lin, the manager of TVbean's licensing department, has been with the company less than three months, and brims with the initiative and self-confidence of the 1970s generation, says that artists who have contracts with TVbean include Cola King, Red Capsule and Viva Girl, who are all currently very popular on the Internet. In Taiwan this is a new way of working, but in fact in other countries it is an established, mature and essential part of the art scene.
Looking back at the foundation his team has built over the last five years, Chauven Tarng quotes the words of Walt Disney: "Remember, it all started with a mouse!" Let us hope that with tender loving care, the magic beans planted by RollCoCo's pandas can also grow into a mighty beanstalk!