The popularity of animation across ages. and demographics continues to expand, and Wattpad WEBTOON Studios wants to be at the heart of the boom.
I spoke with Sydney Bright, the studio's Co-Head of Global Animation, about how they see the new opportunities emerging and to get the latest on arguably their biggest project announcement so far, the much-anticipated adaptation of Rachel Smythe's Lore Olympus.
Will Taylor: Thank you for this interview! Do you want to introduce yourself?
Sydney Bright: Sure! So, I'm Sydney Bright, I'm the Co-Head of Global Animation here at Wattpad WEBTOON Studios.
I have a long career in production on shows like Bob's Burgers and Brickleberry and The Awesomes on Hulu and then jumped over to the development side and have spent the last seven or eight years of my career in development, which has been fantastic.
I’m so excited to be speaking with you and nerding out on all this good stuff!
W: That's exactly where I was going to start as well, so that's perfect!
It feels like animation is having a really good moment. Especially in America but also overseas, it feels like there's a much larger amount of high-end animation productions being done, and there's a wider range of stories and demographics being reached.
For you guys at Wattpad WEBTOON Studios, is that inspiring as you try and grow your output?
S: It's a huge inspiration just as a fan, in general.
For a long time – excluding anime, because anime has done cinematic storytelling for decades and I think the West is catching up in some ways – but for a long time it was kids, action, and comedy titles that serviced consumer products.
You know, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of the world. When adult animation peaked into the world, it was The Simpsons and Family Guy and American Dad, that structure.
Animation is a medium and not a genre and I think we've seen this renaissance start to take off globally where consumers already knew that and I think buyers are starting to catch onto that.
We can tell really beautiful stories that are expansive and don't just have to be in the Pixar, Disney, fantasy space but can be different and be really meaningful. It makes us really excited on the Wattpad WEBTOON side because we have so much content that can service those types of stories.
It gets us really excited to take a lot of the titles that we have on our animation slate out to market because we can leverage those audiences and lean into the value of what that represents in the marketplace and hopefully continue to expand and grow that world [of animation] so that people have more stuff to watch!
W: That's exactly what it's about!
In terms of IP being so important, I think Wattpad WEBTOON is probably in a very enviable position in terms of the sheer amount of material and stories that are there to be told.
You're in the animation division and there are other live-action divisions as well that do adaptations, so what are the things you're looking at when it comes to assessing stories on Wattpad and WEBTOON, and deciding why this story is specifically suited to being animated and being an animation project in this environment?
S: Truthfully, there are sometimes titles that we have to rock, paper, scissors for because the live-action film and TV teams have incredible taste as well. There are a lot of wonderful titles that would service very well in all forms of media.
We do still have to answer the question that drives me nuts, the “why animation” question. If it's a story where the scale of it would be too much in the live-action space or it has something too fantastical where it makes more sense for animation, that gives us a little bit of a one-up compared to our live-action counterparts.
But for us, really, it's "who are the characters," "what is the hook to the story" and "what is the heart," and do we feel like we can fully tell that story to the best of our ability using animation as the medium to the fullest extent.
It’s really the creative first for us and then the marketplace second. Where do we feel the marketplace is? Are they ready for something like this in the animation space?
Then there are titles that we want to take risks on where the market isn't quite there but we can lean on our [Wattpad and WEBTOON] audience and say “Hey, you know what, buyers? This is what the audience wants. Look at the fandom and the readership that exists” and leverage that to help influence why these are meaningful IPs and why we should adapt them into titles.
W: The next question I wanted to ask is around the strategy side of things and how Wattpad WEBTOON Studios wants to grow from this point, and I wondered where the inspiration comes from in terms of the strategy for the studio.
You have the Japanese anime model where it's high levels of production and lots of shows in a constant stream, and then you have things like Marvel and Disney where it's more about building worlds and franchises with a more focused output on specific stories.
Are there any models in terms of how different studios are doing their output that you're looking at as inspiration, or are you trying to establish WWS as a unique player in this growing space?
S: I think it's more establishing ourselves as a unique player in the space.
We take so much care in each of the titles that we put onto our development slate, whether that means the best version of that story in adaptation is a limited series, or a feature, or a tentpole title that can become a bigger world with spinoffs.
For us, it's whatever makes the most sense for that title for its adaptation. We're quality over quantity but have the embarrassment of riches with having so much quantity.
I hope we can continue to scale and grow our slates across all three divisions and can continue to service these titles and output them in a meaningful way, where audiences know that if they're going to watch a Wattpad or WEBTOON adaptation, we're going to bring the best story to screen possible.
I hope that what our brand ends up being associated with is just meaningful, thoughtful storytelling in an impactful way that raises this wonderful IP that exists on both platforms to a whole new stratosphere.
W: That ties into what I was going to ask next because I think you alluded it to there in terms of different styles of production.
When people think of an animated series, they immediately think of TV, 24-30-minute episodes. That standard has been set, but we're seeing more productions playing with that template.
We're seeing a few hour-long episodes now, we've obviously got feature releases; I imagine a studio like Wattpad WEBTOON Studios is also looking at potentially some shorter-form productions and playing with the style a little bit.
Are you trying to go for a mix of outputs or is it going to be more focused towards TV first and then branch out from there where it makes sense?
S: Our animation slate encompasses TV and film right now. We have several film projects in development, none of which we've announced yet, but we are so excited to announce those when we get to that place.
I think for us, some of it is about "where is the marketplace?" Just in terms of scope, more TV series are going to get greenlit in a year than features; it takes about 12 months to produce one season of half-hour animation, so that turnaround is faster than say a three-to-four-year production schedule on the feature side.
So, we are heavier on the TV side than the feature side but features are an incredibly important side to our business and, truthfully, to our storytelling in general.
The marketplace is diversifying in terms of not just being in that half-hour space. I think, while a lot of kids shows sit in that quarter-hour, 11-minute bucket, I think they will start doing more short-form content.
In the adult space, we're starting to hear more whispers and see more things where they are leaning into the hour-long drama opportunities in the animation space.
Pantheon was a great series on AMC+ and that was very anime-inspired but longer form compared to traditional content the way we think of it in terms of animation.
We're looking at all of those opportunities and where we can service the creative in the best way possible. Does it make the most sense as a half-hour show? Does it make the most sense as an hour? Does it make the most sense as a feature?
We're going to lean into where we think the story is best supported.
W: The next question I was going to ask is attached to the anime side. WEBTOON has a rich history of being adapted in Asia across live-action and animation, but notably some big anime series have come from that catalogue of stories.
Looking into some of the projects that WWS have announced, you’re working with different studios to make these projects happen. Are you still going to look to work with studios in Japan or Asia or wherever the story makes sense to produce some of these projects?
Are you looking more towards America, Canada? Or is it still going to be a mix?
S: Yeah, it will always be a mix. There are so many titles; if it feels very Western in tone, very sitcom-y, maybe that will be more of a Canadian-American studio partnership. If it feels more cinematic and anime-inspired, Korea and Japan obviously have beautiful artistry.
There's so much incredible animation coming from France, Spain, Latin America, Ireland, Australia – the global scale of animation and animation production studios is so much larger than people realize. You go to festivals like Annecy or Pixelatl in Mexico and you see all these amazing studios from all over the world with different styles and techniques.
As horrible as COVID was, it did allow for a lot of the animation production process to move to a cloud-based system which has allowed access to artistry. We can bring in a writer or an artist who lives in Poland who has a wonderful look and feel that we want to do visual development with.
So, it will always be a mix in terms of region specificity and we look at what is going to serve the creative in the best way possible in terms of making those choices.
W: That brings me on nicely to the next thing I was going to talk about which is the projects in production.
I think for me, probably the most exciting is Lore Olympus purely because of the nature of the material, because it's such a unique, visually striking style to animate.
It must be such an exciting challenge, something like Lore Olympus and how you turn that into an animated series.
S: Yes. Just yes, period.
I think it's so exciting because there is such a unique style to Rachel Smythe's work and it's so iconic in its bold color palette and singularity with each character where, you know, you can identify their bloodline based on what color they are on the page.
It's two things. First, it's a great responsibility to bring such beautiful artistry into an adaptation and onto screen.
Secondly, it's fantastic because, sometimes, when you put creative constraints around something, you actually end up with a more interesting project as opposed to thinking “it could be whatever you want it to be.”
Thinking about how we bring in that textured watercolor paper that Rachel has on the page behind the characters, how we bring in the sweeping strokes and the softer outline that we see on the characters.
That cinematic, spacious feeling when we're thinking about Olympus and Hades’ home and the underworld; everything is so big and expansive, so how do we really create that sensation on the screen?
We're incredibly excited about it. We're humbled that Rachel has trusted us with bringing it to screen.
I think every artist that we have worked with to date on things behind the scenes is a huge fan of the property and they all add that extra bit of specialness to the project because they are fans and they want to make sure that other fans feel like this is a really honest adaptation of what Lore Olympus would look like on screen.
It's just very exciting on a lot of different levels.
W: It would be strange for me not to ask what production stage Lore Olympus is in at the moment.
There's been a lot of people asking what the latest news is because it was years ago that it was first announced. What stage is it in at the moment, and do you have any expectations in terms of when people might start seeing glimpses of it?
S: I am so thrilled with where we are on our side and I am really looking forward to when we can publicly discuss all of that because I know fans are so excited and we are too.
We're so grateful for our partners at the Jim Henson company and we're excited with where things are right now. Rachel's really excited, too.
We're looking forward to having concrete information that we can publicly share. There’s nothing yet but know that we're excited and we can't wait.
W: To wrap up, are there any other particular projects at the moment that you think fans should be getting excited about, in terms of what people can look forward to seeing soon?
S: There's nothing extra we can talk about that hasn't already been publicly announced. I will say on Lore Olympus, I'm so excited about that title for so many reasons – artistically, which we spoke about, but also because it's a project that can break the mold in terms of the types of storytelling that exist.
I mean, there's so much romance and so much drama, and the fact that it's not just a primetime comedy and has a huge female fan base. Those are all things that we're really excited about.
Hawk is another one that, when I first read that novel, I was so excited about the representation on the screen. The fact that Kas Balera is just a badass woman is so amazing. I love that Worm, her brilliant engineering sidekick, speaks using sign. I love the representation across the board on that title.
Truthfully, those are the only two I can outwardly talk about on our animation slate, but I am an honest fan of everything we have on our slate and I'm so looking forward to announcing those things and having fans be just as excited as we are.
W: Perfect. Thank you so much for your time!
S: Thank you!
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