Albina Mukhametzyanova spoke at the EEF about YARKO’s entry into the full-length animation market

The Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) opened in Vladivostok at the Far Eastern Federal University. Gazprom-Media Holding is the event’s media partner. On September 3, the BRICS Creative Innovation Forum held a session entitled “The Most Important Arts: Cinema and Animation in The Context of Technology”.

Speakers discussed the potential of digital technologies and their impact on development of creative industries, including ways in which content is created, distributed and consumed. The discussion was moderated by Dmitry Pristanskov, State Secretary and Vice President of MMC Norilsk Nickel, and producer and co-founder of Monumental Vision. The discussion was attended by Albina Mukhametzyanova, CEO and general producer at YARKO animation company, Aleksei Kalenchuk, Director of Digital Creative Industries at Skolkovo Foundation, Dmitry Koltsov, director and technical director of the media laboratory at the Kvartal Truda creative cluster, Aleksandr Pavlov, CEO of the Russian Information Technology Development Fund (RFRIT), Pavel Peregudov, CEO of OOO Studio Prospect, creative producer of the pitching of film startups of the Regional Cinema Support Fund, founder of MyFilm48, Vitaly Ten, founder of Mechtalet animation studio, and Yuri Yarushnikov, co-founder of XOVP – eXtraOrdinary Virtual Production.

Albina Mukhametzyanova noted that YARKO is now prioritizing the production of feature films. She also presented Technolayk!, a new animated series in the cyber-fantasy genre for teenagers, which is being created with the support of the Internet Development Institute (ANO IRI) and will be released in 2025.

“Animation works for kids, and it’s the fastest-changing audience that forces content producers to adapt quicker. We must not stand still because children won’t choose you if you are slow or not vibrant. We’ve produced six TV series in three years, and are now focusing on a feature story. We have two full films in production with Central Partnership, and in one of them we’re using a game engine because animation is long and expensive. It takes about 3–4 years to produce one movie, and we are interested in producing faster, because the audience changes, as do senses change, and all of this eventually affects the budget. All ideas require visualization. This is necessary, even for internal work, to understand if we are going there. We also use a neural network to find visual solutions for color combinations, lighting, and clothing elements of the characters. Of course, it speeds up the process and reduces the number of artists involved.”

Albina Mukhametzyanova CEO and general producer at YARKO animation company

The experts also discussed how development and penetration of digital technologies affects film and animation content production and optimization of creation costs, how AI affects authors, and where to draw the line between automation and creativity, etc.

You can view a recording of the session here.

YARKO is part of Gazprom-Media Holding.

Albina Mukhametzyanova spoke at the EEF about YARKO’s entry into the full-length animation market

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