Toonz Media Group partners with Leadbelly Productions for Creepy Candy

Global kids and family entertainment major Toonz Media Group is partnering with Leadbelly Productions to co-produce a brand-new animation property: Creepy Candy.

Developed by multi-award-winning creator and founding president of Leadbelly Productions Alan Jude Summa, Creepy Candy is targeted at children aged 4-11. Season one of the 2D animation show will include 26 x 3-minute episodes and is slated to launch in October 2022. The project’s first phase will also include a 30-minute Halloween special episode to be released in October 2023.

Creepy Candy is a unique property that offers us immense opportunities to explore beyond series development,” says Toonz Media Group CEO P. Jayakumar. “Our idea is to develop this property into a 360-degree brand that includes digital media shorts, mini-movies, consumer products, and other L&M avenues.”

Licensing veteran and CEO of NXT GEN Brand Marketing, Debi Rosenfeld, will work with Toonz on building the brand in the consumer products market.

“We are excited about our partnership with Toonz Media Group, to bring the Creepy Candy story and characters to life in a new animated series and Halloween special,” says Alan Summa. “For years this space has been content with the usual traditional holiday programmes. Creepy Candy is bringing something new and fresh to captivate the imaginations of children and adults alike. We’re bringing the fun and excitement of Halloween all year round! The special is scheduled to air in October 2023 and promises to be a new classic for this popular time of year.”

Debi Rosenfeld adds: “I am thrilled to be working with the Toonz Media Group and the Leadbelly Productions team to partner on the consumer products programme. We will be supporting the team by building a robust merchandising and licensing portfolio with key manufacturers and promotional partners. The Creepy Candy animation series and Halloween special will be packed full of fun, with its spooky candy characters and their creep-elicious adventures, and is sure to delight and captivate young fans around the globe.”

Creepy Candy is the tale of a bag of candy accidently left behind in a spooky old library. On Halloween night the candies mysteriously come to life and are joined by host spirit, Ty Poe, who haunts the old library. The result is a creepily comedic adventure with the candies frantically trying to avoid being eaten by the delightfully wicked librarian, Miss Page Turner.

The show will be distributed worldwide to television and OTT partners by Toonz Entertainment, the distribution wing of Toonz Media Group. Toonz will also leverage its digital ecosystem, social media and existing partnerships with AVOD platforms to build the Creepy Candy brand.

Rainbow Group’s Pinocchio and Friends joins CBeebies lineup

Italy’s Rainbow Group has inked an exclusive agreement with the UK’s leading free-to-air preschool channel CBeebies to broadcast its new CGI animated series Pinocchio and Friends from early 2022.

The new adaptation featuring the much-loved wooden character ranks as the most watched and top-rated show on Italian channel Rai Yoyo, which premiered Pinocchio and Friends last November.

Produced by Rainbow in collaboration with Rai Ragazzi and Toonz Media Group, the 26 x 12-minute action-comedy show retains the original values that made Collodi’s novel a timeless classic, while taking the audience on brand-new adventures set in the artfully designed, contemporary world.

The puppet is joined on his adventures by Freeda, a pirate doll always ready to board, and grumpy Talking Cricket, appointed by the Fairy with Turquoise Hair to keep an eye on them. Among old and new encounters, modern technology, and surprising twists, Pinocchio aims to take the audience on a funny journey to discover everyday little wonders and universal values such as inclusion, friendship and the power of dreams.

Rainbow’s Founder and CEO Iginio Straffi, who devised the concept for the new show, says: “I have been waiting for the right time to bring this concept to light with the attention and quality it deserves. My new Pinocchio brings out the essence of what makes this story so inspirational while speaking to children in a light-hearted, educational show that empowers their dreams with key life values and exciting dynamics.

“I couldn’t be more delighted that we’ve partnered with top-quality broadcaster BBC to air on CBeebies for British children next year, and we look forward to seeing the series thrive.”

 

 

 

Toonz Media Group and GuardianLink launch world’s first fully integrated NFT design lab

Global animation major Toonz Media Group and GuardianLink are jointly launching the world’s first Integrated NFT design lab specialising in state-of-the-art Non Fungible Tokens for custom-made digital assets.

The award-winning Toonz studio, with a legacy of more than two decades and over 100 original animation IPs to its credit, is venturing into the NFT space with a first-of-its-kind NFT design lab. The Toonz NFTLabs will provide integrated services for artists, creators, collectors, athletes and brands to create curated digital assets and NFTs representing them.

Non Fungible Tokens or NFTs are blockchain-based digital certificates that certify that the digital asset tied to it is unique and not interchangeable. NFTs can represent photos, videos, audio, or any type of digital file. They are now widely used to purchase and validate ownership of digital artwork, collectibles, in-game assets, memes, and so on. Although they have been around since 2012, NFTs shot to popularity in early 2021 with the staggering auction sales of assets such as artist Beeple’s digital artwork ‘Everydays – The First 5000 Days’ (sold for $69m), NBA Top Shot video clip of LeBron James (sold for $208,000) and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet (sold for $2.5m). The NFT technology is also empowering artists and creators by eliminating middlemen, providing direct access to buyers and fans, and more importantly through resale royalties trickling back to the artist.

“The emergence of NFTs is possibly the biggest disruption that has happened in the art world in recent history, completely changing the way we perceive, own, and consume art,” says said P Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Media Group. “Toonz NFTLabs will be a game-changer in this space, being the first-ever and the largest NFT service provider for curated digital assets.

“The NFT marketplace provides us with the unique opportunity to generate traction for animation IPs even before they are produced or launched in the market. It provides a whole new world of opportunity for funding projects, a model that even independent creators and brands can adopt. We want to help those creators and brands by producing custom-made NFT assets for them and launching them in the NFT marketplace. We are extremely happy to have the right technology partner for this venture in Guardian Link, who have already launched over 45 NFT marketplaces on their own.”

Singapore-based GuardianLink, which specialises in Guardian Branded MarketPlace product and Legitimacy Protocol for NFTs, has extensive experience in the NFT space and with over 45 marketplaces launched in 30 countries. With offices in India, Japan, and Singapore, the company houses 350 NFT concept creators and blockchain technologists, teamed with product specialists.

“NFT is the new medium of digital assets with economic underpinnings and its acceptance has proved to be a true testament to the decentralized economy at scale,” says Keyur Patel, Chairman and Co-Founder , GuardianLink.io. “This is the first time in history any creator, any athlete, or any known or unknown brand can make a dent and indulge in enormous monetisation of their own rarity, creativity and uniqueness. Gaming, Media, Release and many other segments of the industry are touched by NFT and it is just the beginning of the revolution. With the Guardian platform supporting both Fiat and Crypto payments globally, we feel this will push NFT and acceptance will be much wider among audiences globally.”

Toonz NFTLabs in partnership with GuardianLink will specialise in both the creative and technological aspects of NFT generation, including conceptualisation, development, character design, modelling and asset designs, along with smart contract generation for NFTs. With over 1,000 designers and technologists from Europe and Asia, the NFT lab will offer services such as Creative Storyboarding & Conceptualization, 2D Character Design & Digital Asset Development with Smart Contract Attributes, 3D Design & Modelling, Gamification, Smart Contract Auto Generation, Metaverse Immersion Model, and Incubation Lab for Emerging Artists. The lab will also offer top-tier IP partnerships for television properties, movie properties, games and metaverses.

Developed using some of the most advanced technologies, such as the Isomorphic NFT Framework, these NFTs will be designed and generated randomly using smart contracts on Ethereum, Polygon or Solano blockchains. GuardianLink will also provide a branded marketplace and launch pads for creators, brands, and athletes/celebrities who want to launch their own independent NFT destinations for auctions and trades integrated with third party exchanges.