Rainbow Fish alliance reflects quicksilver market mutation

While the life cycle of an animated series project may be filled with many permutations from concept to execution, curiously, the evolution of the co-pro partners' businesses can sometimes keep pace in the plot twist department. Rainbow Fish, a book that begat a video that spawned a series, is such a tale. . .

Once upon a time, there was a U.S. domestic video developer and distributor, a newbie Canadian production studio and a European company better known for its licensing endeavors than co-production. Add to that mix a children's book enjoying international success and a desire to turn that book into a TV series.

Cut to three years later: the video company is Sony Wonder, now well enmeshed in the international TV production scene, having acquired Sunbow Entertainment in the interim; the Canadian start-up is three-year-old Decode Entertainment, which has several successful series on air, as well as a recently added distribution arm; and the Euro entertainment company is Germany's EM.TV & Merchandising, whose morphs since the outset of the deal include going public and nabbing significant acquisitions, including the Jim Henson Company.

Marcus Pfister's American Bookseller Book of the Year Award winner Rainbow Fish, which the three partners have successfully turned into a TV series for the three to seven crowd, now airs on SAT.1 in Germany as part of EM.TV's Junior.TV block, in the U.S. on HBO Family (twice a day, seven days a week), and in Canada on TVO. Each half-hour episode follows Rainbow and friends' adventures in the Bay of Neptune, and everyday activities at Rainbow's house and their "School of Fish" classroom. The series, budgeted at US$300,000 per ep (comprised of two 11-minute segments), features cutting-edge animation and special effects that reproduce the effect of Rainbow's silver shimmering scales as illustrated in the book series. This is the story of how the co-production came to be. . .

Loris Kramer, Sony Wonder's VP of creative affairs, discovered the book on one of her regular bookstore excursions scouting for possible kids books to option. Jumping out from amidst the piles of potential TV fodder was Rainbow Fish, which had both a literal and figurative sparkle to it. Knowing next to nothing about the title at the time, it was not until contacting the publisher that Kramer was informed that the book, published in 1992, had already sold over one million copies-an important factor when considering optioning a title. The book has since sold more than three million copies in the U.S. and 10 million globally.

Although Sony Wonder secured all rights for Rainbow Fish, the company only planned to create a home video for the U.S. market. "When we originally found the book, our business was very different. Back then, Sony Wonder was primarily focused on the domestic video business," says Kramer. The all-too-common gap in time that can exist from acquisition to production meant that Sony Wonder had started to focus on international business by the time actual production on the project began, causing them to discern the property's greater potential as a one-hour TV special for international distribution.