Mercury Filmworks Steps Up Originals Drive

Mercury Filmworks’ Heath Kenny and Chantal Ling showcased the creativity at the heart of the studio, which is marking its 25th anniversary, during the TV Kids Summer Festival today.

Kenny is the chief content officer, charged with spearheading the company’s move into original programming. As VP of original series and co-productions, Ling specializes in proprietary content and co-productions. In conversation with TV Kids’ Kristin Brzoznowski, they discussed the studio’s strengths as a service provider and the drive to create more original content in the session, which you can view here.

Led by Clint Eland as CEO, Mercury Filmworks was established in 1997 with the vision of being the best animation studio in the world, Ling explained. The company is well-known for its 2D capabilities and was an early player in embracing Toon Boom Harmony and other digital animation technologies. After working on several co-pro projects, the company has embarked on an originals drive, Ling noted.

“We have been working on a slate for the last two and a half years,” Ling said. “We have approximately 15 projects; 50 percent of that is coming from our creatives internally. One of our focuses is on building really strong storytellers.”

“That’s something we’ve deliberately tried to foster,” Kenny added.

On the work-for-hire business, meanwhile, Kenny said, “We’re really seeking to be of service at the highest level, but also seeking to understand from the onboarding process of any new show what the needs are of our clients and our creative leaders. Whoever the creative stakeholders are, the first thing we do is try to actively listen. Being able to expand that offer into things that are beyond just animation and moving to other parts of the process, it’s a level of generosity and a hunger for excellence that I think is pretty rare in the marketplace.”

Ling added: “Mercury started as a service company, and we took that word ‘service’ literally. We realized we needed to be the guardians of the creative. We take that very seriously. It’s in our DNA from the service, and it’s fed into our originals team as well.”

On the expansion into originals, the process begins with identifying the “pillars or the promise of a show,” Kenny explained. “Chantal and I go through a sort of thought exercise of figuring out, based on what we believe to be the strategy or the promise of the show, what are the stories we’re telling ourselves that need to be true for this to be a reality? Once we list those in terms of importance, we know exactly what we cannot compromise on for this to be a success. It’s an empowering place to be because you can be a collaborative partner, but you’re not compromising unintentionally.”

Supporting the creative vision is crucial, Ling added. “The processes that Heath brought into the company have elevated us even further and enabled us to focus on each project uniquely and servicing that project and that creative team.”

Kenny added, “We have a very deep and robust pipeline, but it’s thanks to our people that it’s able to be flexible and agile at the same time. We can do something that feels slapstick, cartoony and almost hand-drawn, and then we do something else that is subtle in its performance and very complex. We can flex and move our pipeline to suit the creative. We’re always thinking about how can we make sure that the technology and our people serve the creative.”

Ling noted that ensuring the slate is diverse and authentic is vital. “We work extremely hard in our projects to ensure that we’re casting appropriately and have a diverse voice as far as the types of stories we’re telling.”

That’s easier said than done, Kenny added. “Sometimes projects get delayed heavily because we haven’t found the right people. We have to wait. We have to keep looking. That’s a passion of ours. When you have the right level of diversity of voices in and around the show’s core team, its potential reach internationally [expands]. It makes a real difference in terms of audience engagement. It’s become a pillar of the way we approach original content.”

Becoming “the best storytellers in the world” is the company’s driving force as it expands its slate of original ideas, Ling noted.

“One of the mantras that we use a lot is this idea of creating a safe place to be creative and a creative place to do business,” Kenny noted. “A lot of people just focus on the projects, but if you don’t create the process for your people, there’s nothing for them to follow. Also, if you ask your people to go from doing one thing that they’ve been doing in terms of expertise incredibly well, and now you’re going to jump into the fear of the blank page. It’s terrifying. So you have to get them ready. It’s people, process and projects. You can’t do it any other way. Part of how we make a safe place to be creative is to openly manage risk. We need to manage the expectations of our creators. As we move into more strategic partnerships, it’s the same thing. We need to understand how we’re managing our risk as partners.”

On determining a development slate, Kenny noted: “We need to make evidence-based decisions on how we move projects forward. We need proof of real engagement, and we’ll take the project to the next phase. That means we can make bold and confident moves in terms of the sales tools we’re creating to pitch things and move things forward. Ultimately, it’s bringing clarity, transparency and, again, safety. We want to ensure that our creators feel safe and confident because nothing is worse than a creator that lacks confidence.”

The development process ends in the preproduction phase, Kenny continued. “That’s where all the theories and the stories you’re telling yourself about finance become either a reality or you end up with a gap. At that point, you must decide how to pull the trigger on a green light.”

Kenny then outlined the “workshop process” the company deploys to onboard projects. “One of the biggest challenges for anyone working on originals or creating content from scratch is alignment. If you lack alignment, you can waste precious money and time and people being misaligned and ending up in different places than you expected. That’s the worst outcome.”

Mercury’s workshop process “allows us to identify any property’s core themes and promise. From that, we can create a business and a creative strategy, and we can cast a team that is set up for success. We want to make sure that everyone’s on the same page. And then we’re building sales tools that will deliver on the core promise of a show.”

Kenny added: “Ultimately, we all know we’re in a risk-averse marketplace right now. The animation industry as a whole has been through a lot of difficulties. We’re learning that our plucky little team has developed a system that may help us manage our risk, but it’s a service that people need right now, and we’re happy to share.”

Kenny then discussed AI and how animation show formats are evolving. “The industry has been driven by the commercial half-hour for the longest time. And then, we shifted from that advertising-driven model to subscriber-driven. That’s a different interaction with content and a different way of consuming content. The next logical thing that AI will empower us to do is create user-driven formats. The next frontier for us as content creators is to find a way to elevate that user experience through AI and to create content that has multi-use cases.”

Kenny expects AI will also be used in production management. “OpenGPT is interesting in the way it’s creating production management tools. If you give it a timeline and budget, and it can spit out a working plan for you, that’s valuable.”

Expanding its CGI capabilities is also a priority, Kenny and Ling noted. “And looking at new financing models,” she added. “Looking at ways of retaining and managing our rights as we move in the original space in the next 12 to 18 months will be very important as well.”

Kenny added: “We’re looking to elevate voices that otherwise wouldn’t have those opportunities. We’re getting a lot of creators coming to us now because they’ve heard the news that this is a safe place to be creative. That in itself is a real win for us.”