Costa Rica’s digital animation sector explores partnerships and commercial opportunities with Chilean market

• Animation Costa Rica Consortium presented its offer through http://animationcostarica.fun

San Jose, August 4, 2020. In order to identify alternatives for joint development in intellectual property projects, co-production and sale of services, as well as to promote commercial ties between Costa Rica and Chile, to further strengthen the digital animation sector of both countries, a virtual business meeting was held last week in which the competitive advantages and reciprocity between the Chilean and Costa Rican industries were analyzed.

This virtual mission was coordinated by the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Promoter (PROCOMER) in conjunction with its counterpart, ProChile, with the participation of national studios including Herald Entertainment, Estudio Shout, LasalaPost, Estudio Ático, Sueter Studio, Relish Costa Rica, Journey Animation, Marte Estudio, Osopez and Rocket Cartoons.

Pedro Beirute, General Manager at PROCOMER, feels that Chile is a well-developed market in the creative industry and a Latin American benchmark with the success of winning an Oscar for the animated short story Historia de un Oso. “We have seen that our digital animation industry compliments Chile’s and we want the sector to take advantage of this opportunity, exploring the possibility of selling our services and acquiring others to complement final works and projects. The potential to create co-productions and trade agreements for projects that already have a pilot (creation of characters, scripts) or are in the development stages – in search of a commercial partner to access target markets – is great!” he stated.

During the trade mission, the Costa Rican offer was presented to the Chilean Digital Animation Association (ANIMACHI) via the platform http://animationcostarica.fun/. The activity allowed national studios to approach potential clients in the Chilean market, learn more about the dynamics and negotiations in Chile, as well as sources of financing, and analyze the possibilities of co-production to enter international markets of interest to the industries of both countries.

“As is to be expected, PROCOMER’s did a spectacular job and, in this particular case, brought us face to face with animation studios that will help us further grow in projects and attract proposals that stand out in international markets. On this mission we learned about a study that surprised us with its value proposition and we are sure that we will be working together in the near future”, said Oliver Zúñiga, owner of Marte Estudio.

Nicole Alejandra Ponce, Director and host of Productora Houston de Chile, added that “first of all, as a producer, we want to congratulate PROCOMER and ProChile for their strategy, which from the get-go was a true promoter of contacts and networking, creating a connective bridge between our countries. This type of platform and initiative helps enhance our productions and allows us to get to know each other better. One important take-away, as a production company, is the portfolio prepared in advance, to see the interests of each institution. It’s a real showcase for us and an engine that drives us to generate these new ties. Each meeting we were able to schedule included discussions about animation, production and projects that we can improve on with more hands.”

This virtual trade mission was carried out as a follow-up to the opportunities detected in the study “Digital Animation in Chile: characterization of the sector and co-production potential”, carried out by PROCOMER in July 2019, which revealed the potential for Costa Rica to establish agreements and carry out joint productions with Chilean studios. These opportunities focus on the interest of Chilean animation studios in adding Costa Rican human talent to their projects, outsourcing certain specialized services such as rigging, 3D modeling, motion graphics, etc., establishing a commercial partner or platform closer to the North American market and exploring new conceptual proposals of value for the generation of content.

In addition to this, the study “Profile of digital animation in Costa Rica”, demonstrates that this sector tends to focus on the export of its services: 42% of the companies that make up the sector present international sales and 40% of their total income comes from the exports they carry out. Hence, the Promoter has prioritized carrying out virtual commercial promotion activities to continue boosting the industry.