Talk to the Snail

So our good friend Rita Street tricked me into participating in an event she and her Radar Cartons pal, John Hardman, put together with the New Zealand government. Basically, a bunch of Kiwi creators and studio reps fly to L.A. to meet, greet, and pitch mighty development executives (like me) from benevolent cartoon companies (like Frederator). Held throughout the day at a Burbank hotel, the event saw all the usual suspects from the suit side – Disney, Starz, Cartoon Network, Nelvana, Cookie Jar, and so forth were all represented (Nickelodeon sat out because the projects weren’t from the U.S.).

Anyhoo, the New Zealand folks I met with were very nice, had great ideas, and were soldiering on despite having pitched the same ideas up to ten times in the course of a few hours. I offered all the usual wisdom and advice (“Maybe a cartoon about a development executive who eats pretzels?”), ate some pretzels, and walked away with a gift bottle of vino. Plus, I finally got to meet Brent Chambers from Flux (above), a big supporter of Channel Frederator and with whom I’ve traded emails.

Thanks for your time and work, Rita & John & all you New Zealanders.

Time for blurry photos!

Cristina Casares from La Luna Studios:

Cameron Chittock from Sasquatch Productions Ltd:

Maile Daugherty from Albedo VFX:

Shona Grundy from Kangoo Animation:

– Eric