[KEYEAST]Keyeast enters into cooperative production agreement...

2009.1.29

Keyeast enters into cooperative production agreement with 4 animation production companies

New milestones set in the domestic animation industry – coproduction system, advance collection of all funds from investors, etc.

- Keyeast commences production of Winter Sonata animation.
- First instance of raising all required funds before the commencement of production, and unprecedented interest resulting in high profit expectations.
- Sleeping with the enemy occurs within domestic animation industry – establishment of first animation coproduction system.

The highly anticipated Winter Sonata animation will enter into the production stage.

The Asian cultural content company Keyeast Co., Ltd. officially announced on January 21, 2009 that it entered into a production cooperative agreement with four of the leading domestic animation production companies and that Keyeast will now enter into the main production stage.

The four production companies are Pencil Contemplations (preproduction), G&C Entertainment (main production), JM Animation (main production), and High Five Media (main production). These entities are the leading domestic animation production companies and they have been displaying the technical expertise of the domestic animation industry to the world. Keyeast selected these four companies through a competitive bidding process.

The use of a coproduction model for the production of an animation work is unprecedented and is regarded by the animation industry as the combination of the efforts of production companies for the creation of high quality content.

Through the advance sales to Japanese enterprises of DVD, soundtrack, publishing, game and other derivative rights, the entire production funds have already been raised before the commencement of production. The initial interest and high level of expectation regarding the project is expected to lead to high earnings.

A spokesperson for Keyeast stated that the coproduction system, the raising of all production funds before the commencement of production, etc. are unprecedented not only in the animation industry but in all other cultural content industries and that these developments were made possible by the people who support our vision to create leading and competitive content.The spokesperson also stated that in order to become Asia's number one entertainment content company which fully performs its role of creating content which appeals to all of Asia, Keyeast will continue to undertake new projects and always do its best.

The Winter Sonata animation has attracted much attention due to the announced plans that Bae Yong Joon and Choi Ji Woo will contribute to the project with their voices for the main characters and in addition, the director, Sung Baek Yup, who became famous through his animation work entitled Oseam, has agreed to be the main director for the Winter Sonata animation. The Winter Sonata animation will be comprised of 26 episodes, which will each be 30 minutes long, and will be broadcast in the latter half of this year.

[KEYEAST]