WA's first locally produced animated television series for adults a success

2/3/02
Western Australia's first locally produced animated television series for adult audiences - Quads - has been a critical and commercial success, according to Culture and the Arts Minister Sheila McHale.
Ms McHale said ScreenWest, the State Government's film and television development agency, attracted Melbourne-based animation company Animation Works (a company in the Media World Group) to WA for the production of the first series of the adult animation project Quads by John Callahan.

Production was completed in February 2001, and the series has just completed its first run on SBS on Monday nights at 9pm.
"The first series has been a critical and commercial success, with sales to date likely to result in a minimum of approximately 25 per cent of ScreenWest's investment of $600,000 in the first series being repaid in the current calendar year," Ms McHale said.
"This is an excellent result. It is a high return on the State's investment, particularly so early in the series' life."
The $2.5million series was principally financed by SBS Independent, a strong supporter over many years of WA film and television.

Ms McHale also recently approved production support of $200,000 to assist in production of a second series of Quads (Quads II), which will result in a range of benefits to WA.
These benefits include:

• 17 people employed in WA for approximately one year;

• the key creative roles of producer and editor will be locals, with one of the three Australian writers and two of the principal storyboard artists based in Western Australia;

• the first series of Quads was in effect the first 'prime time' adult series produced in Western Australia. If the second series is backed, there is a prospect that it could become a long-running series, as potentially more buyers are interested in series that run longer than 13 episodes;

• Animation Works is one of the few companies left in Australia producing animation. Most production companies send their work offshore;

• the technology being employed leads its field in world terms; this unique production is produced entirely over the Internet from Perth to Toronto with Canadian co-producers Nelvana (the world's biggest animation company). Having this level of expertise in Western Australia is a valuable addition to the production comunity; and

• the Film & Television Institute recently launched its Centre for Digital Animation. Projects such as Quads should assist graduates of the Centre in finding employment opportunities in WA.