In the second of a series of interviews with leading production and distribution companies in Central and Eastern Europe ahead of this year’s NATPE Budapest, Broadband TV News speaks with Robert Jaszczurowski, producer and co-owner at Grupa Smacznego.
How did Grupa Smacznego come into being?
Lukasz (Kacprowicz), Marcin (Wasilewski) and I have been friends for many years. We met doing a kind of corporate job and got fed up with it. We decided to start a business together, to do something creative and follow our dream, making animated films. It didn’t happen immediately. We started Grupa Smacznego in 2004 and worked very hard doing commissioned jobs to make our way into this field of business. Our first big production was Harry and Toto, a TV series for preschool children by Paul Shuttleworth for BBC Worldwide. From Harry and Toto we learned how to manage these kinds of projects, work with international partners, make pipelines etc.
What types of programming do you specialise in?
We specialise in animated TV series for children made in 2D, mostly in Toon Boom. But we’re open to experimenting with different techniques, styles and tools. We also try other formats, e.g. short films. At the moment we’re developing our first animated feature film, Mice on Strike. This film, dedicated to young audiences, is really important to us, because it will embrace the idea of the Solidarity movement.
What have been your most successful productions to date, both locally and internationally?
Our most successful production so far is Mami Fatale, a TV series (26 episodes x 10 minutes) and we’re now working on the next season. It’s our original project, co-produced with Studio Miniatur Filmowych (Poland). It’s well known locally, awarded prizes at a number of festivals in Poland (Tarnowska Nagroda Filmowa – the main one from the Children Jury, won three years in a row), and sold internationally. The English version of Mami Fatale has been launched on our YouTube channel Toon Balloon under the title Granny, Butch and Waffles and reached a large number of views and subscriptions.
Another successful project is our short Lost Senses, launched in 2013. It is a 3D experiment with de Chirico paintings in the background. It won the Jury Award at Siggraph 2013 and other festivals. The project was presented at a number of conferences and exhibitions, as well as covered by the professional press, and is still in distribution.
Who have they been sold to?
Mami Fatale was sold to Educar (Argentina), Multimania (Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Turkmenistan, Georgia), YLE (Finland), Jim Jam (Poland), TV Puls (Poland), TVP ABC (Poland) and
Tempo – DVD & VOD (Taiwan).
Lost Senses was sold to Japan and the USA and presented in over 45 festivals around the world.
Do you coproduce with Polish and/or international partners? If not, do you plan to do so in the future?
All three seasons of Mami Fatale are being co-produced with our Polish partner – Studio Miniatur Filmowych from Warsaw. We are currently also looking for international partners for our two TV series Basia and Grand Banda and we have already had some interest for both projects from several European companies. We are also in in the process of becoming a minority co-producer in two great projects: two 26-minute TV specials from Finland and a pre-school TV series from Spain.
What productions are you currently working on?
We are currently working on the production of Basia – a TV series aimed at preschool children, based on a very successful Polish series of children’s books under the same title. We’re in development with two other TV series: Grand Banda – a spy adventure comedy for 6 to 9 year- olds and Banjo Pig – a series for teenagers and young adults. We’re also finishing the development of our first feature movie – Mice on Strike and a new artistic short film Bernard. Recently we also launched our YouTube channel – Toon Balloon, dedicated to pre-schoolers and their parents and we’re now focusing on creating great quality online content.
How do you see the Polish production industry in general and your position in it?
I think that at the moment the Polish production industry is growing even stronger than before, and we’re getting quite comfortable in the position of leadership in the eastern part of Europe. I’m a board member of the Polish Animation Producers’ Association and more and more new members have joined our group over the last few months. We decided to unite Polish producers in order to be able to promote Polish animation more successfully.
As for Grupa Smacznego, we’re one of the biggest animation studios in Poland, which makes us also one of the biggest local players. We’re able to deliver a very good quality of animation with our rates being lower than in other regions of Europe. This gives us a serious market advantage and we end up doing quite a lot of commissioned work, as well as developing our own IPs.
Given that Grupa Smacznego is still quite a young company, how do you expect it to develop over the next few years?
We would like to explore the possibilities connected with online distribution, continue growing our YouTube channel and getting our shows distributed on big web platforms such as Netflix or Amazon. We also want to develop our own IPs from TV series onto bigger cross-media brands that would get more international recognition. We would love our brands to conquer not only Europe but also the United States. Finally, we would love to continue strengthening our position on the international animation market by getting into more co-production projects.
