MIFA's ups & No downs

By Julie Bénéteau. Director of International Sales, The Kitchen

'Representing The Kitchen, as the company’s Director of International Sales, I do feel that MIFA gallantly brings our industry the entire, wonderful world of animation in one fell swoop so to speak. MIFA is more of a festival than a market. MIFA is an entire week of exploring new titles, meeting new friends and catching up with clients. MIFA is the third largest film festival in Europe, behind Cannes and Berlin, and since I am based in London, and a French national, I know the importance of the European market first-hand'.

'MIFA’s entire atmosphere is amazing, friendly, creative and fun.  It’s an enlightening experience as you watch and meet with the entire animation world all at once. While the industry, almost everyone will agree, is not yet back to “pre covid” days, it is definitely on the upswing'.

'The Kitchen’s workload has increased this year, and animation is a huge part of that cause for our rise in revenue.  Dubbing US English, in our Miami headquarters, will cost a client about a third of the cost of dubbing English in Los Angeles.  Our English teams are growing and we continue to bring in and train new talent through dubbing workshops for children as well as adults. US English is the backbone of nearly every new IP, and we are pleased to be in the forefront of so many of them'.

'With regard to AI, surprisingly there wasn’t much talk about it at MIFA this year.  In our future world we may begin to use AI more in some of our workflows, specifically to give us more time on the creative side. We’ve actually been doing just that for nearly four years. And we do know that in the world of AI, there will be more changes, more benefits and more opportunities all the time.  What may stand out today, WILL be replaced by something better tomorrow. That is specifically why our team always believes in staying ahead of the pack!'

'Josh Pine, our CFO, who recently joined The Kitchen from the pioneering AI company, XL8, has been a guiding light to our teams and to our clients. The Kitchen does like to be a frontrunner when it comes to new technologies, and because of Josh’s input over the past four years, our workflow strategies have relied on AI to some degree and benefited from them greatly.  With Josh on board and from what our team have learned, I truly believe that the integration of AI, as new technologies come to our attention, will continue to aid The Kitchen in providing the very best localization outcome for our clients'.

'If we are able to save time and money for our clients, and if AI can help us do just that, then we are all winners.  So while AI wasn’t really discussed at MIFA, we do know that just about every one of our clients are looking to us for guidance'.

LC