Studio Gale (CEO Changhwan Shin) attended ‘Gwangju ACE Fair 2022’, which was held for 4 days from Sept 22nd (Thurs) to the 25th (Sun) at Kim Daejung Convention Center in Gwangju.
Studio Gale is an animation production studio established in 2008, and as a subsidiary of ‘Iconix’, has mainly produced animations for children, including ‘Pororo’. They have since then produced their own independent animations like ‘Grami’s Circus Show’, ‘Telemonster’, and ‘Journey of Long’, and manage multifaceted content businesses based on the IP (Intellectual Property) of these works.
In the exhibition, Studio Gale showcased character goods that were produced based on the TV animation series that they helped produce, like ‘Tish Tash’ and ‘Tomon Car’, as well as ‘WillBengers’, a 3D animation which was released in theaters.
Of these, their representative work was ‘Tish Tash’ which is a children’s animation which was first aired through EBS on September 2020, and was Studio Gale’s first 2D animation that they produced. Singapore’s ‘August Media Holdings’ and the Philippines’ ‘Synerge88 Entertainment’ were part of production and joint investments, and they made all the preparations needed to target the global market, minimizing the color palette of Korean animations during the character design process and bringing on British and Singaporean artists.
The company explained that they got a great response from viewers from other countries through multinational OTT services with English dubbing with voice actors from English-speaking countries and said that they have been popular in Korea as well for their English education content. Based on such high popularity, the UK’s BBC will take part in the production and airing of ‘Tish Tash’ season 2, and this is expected to further expand their viewer base all over the world.
A spokesman for Studio Gale said that, “We have made the great achievement of making it into the BBC, but we aim to further expand our company’s content, including Tish Tash, into China and the Southeast Asian market, and further expand our influence on the global market,” and went on the reveal that, “To this end, we came to this exhibition and met with potential investors and partners, and we expect our efforts to lead to actual practical results.”
Gwangju ACE Fair 2022 is a comprehensive content exhibition where you can see all categories of content licensing, including AI, metaverse, VR/AR, games, broadcasts, animations, and characters, in one place. It was hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and the metropolitan city of Gwangju, and overseen by the KimDaejung Convention Center, Gwangju Information & Content Agency, Gwangju Institute of Design Promotion, Korea Cable TV Association, and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). In addition to the ‘Web Animation Festival (WAF)’ hosted by the Gwangju Information & Content Agency, there were other diverse additional events showcased throughout the exhibition period, such as the New Illustrator Discovery Contest with NC Soft, board game competition and experiencing event, cosplay festival, the 15th Youth Broadcasting Content Contest, and animation premiere.
