Sydney Bright took her childhood dream of working in the animation industry and brought it fully into reality, moving through its different facets and ultimately becoming co-head of one of the most ambitious and innovative studios ever: Wattpad WEBTOON Studios. The idea materialized in 2021 through the merger of the studio divisions of Wattpad and WEBTOON. Wattpad is an incredible story platform, with hundreds of thousands of writers creating hundreds of thousands of stories, many of which go on to be adapted for television and film. WEBTOON is a similarly impressive platform at the forefront of the digital publication of webcomics and webtoons. The combination of both platforms’ studios is greater than the sum of its parts; a massive amount of creators, stories, and constant audience engagement has allowed the studio to encourage more and more digital publishing as well as adapt multiple stories across multiple formats, including animated series like HAWK and LORE OLYMPUS.
We got the opportunity to sit down with Bright and ask her about her journey within the industry, how the studio engages with artists and consumers, and the awesome opportunity that comes alongside a considerable platform.
Bright’s Journey and the Studio’s Journey
To start, I wanted to get an understanding of how Bright got into the animation industry, something she explained had been a lifelong dream of hers.
“I am one of those rare humans who knew what they wanted to do when they were a little kid, and then went to school to do it, and then actually ended up working in it. I majored in animation with a minor in studio arts at Loyola Marymount University. I thought I was going to be a storyboard director—and very quickly realized that I did not want to be a storyboard director—but I loved animation. I was an early 90s Disney kid, and there used to be these interstitials during commercial breaks, where you’d see the Disney vault, the doors would open, and you’d go and see the Imagineers, or animators drawing at the zoo and see what real deer looked like. But they had one where a gentleman was sitting at a drafting table and he had the pegboard situated. So the pages were in the pegboard and he had the pages in between his fingers. It was basically Jasmine and Rajah from Aladdin [on the pages] and he was kind of flipping back and forth.
“I knew from then that I wanted to work in animation. So started in production, worked on shows like Bob’s Burgers, was at that animation studio for almost 10 years, and then went on and started doing development with them, and then landed here two years ago. I love the development process, I love animation; it’s my first love.”
Since then, the studio has grown quite a bit. After reminiscing a bit about the days before online streaming services, when Disney would place movies into a “vault” shortly after release and only re-release the films 7 or more years later, I asked Bright about Wattpad WEBTOON Studios’ own vault of content and how they go about selecting stories to adapt.
“[During] the last two years where the studio has been around, there’s been a really big push for us to get our development slates up and running. And that’s inclusive of live-action television, live-action film, and animation, which we do film and TV [for], which is really fun. We have an incredibly diverse slate, which is really fantastic. But for us, it’s kind of twofold. Obviously, there are huge titles like LORE OLYMPUS, where the metrics are astronomical, the fan base is wildly dedicated, and people who aren’t consumers on the platforms necessarily also know about the title. So it’s definitely in our best interest to serve those titles and find ways to get those adapted to the screen to hopefully reach those audiences and then some.
“But the other piece is really finding stories that have a great hook, things that have a great emotional connection with characters, and things that we think have a good market fit. So it’s not always metrics that we lean into. Sometimes a title can be much younger in terms of its development process. Maybe it’s only been on the platform for a year or two compared to something like LORE OLYMPUS which has had several years on the platform. So for us, it’s really about: ‘Do we think an audience will follow this title to a version on screen?’ Because the characters, the hook, the world-building…all of those pieces are really there that make sense for an adaptation.”
The development process within Wattpad WEBTOON Studios makes use of the wealth of first-party data in the form of comments, feedback, and activity from users, something that directly communicates to studio staff how people respond to the content they consume. They’re perhaps the best form of being thoughtful in how they adapt stories to maintain the work’s integrity and keep fandoms excited.
“The development process is all internal before we go out to the marketplace, with the caveat that we have a little bit of a cheat sheet on both platforms. On the WEBTOON side, our audience can comment down to the episode. So you can fall down the rabbit hole of that kind of thread discussion to really see what is the fan base responding to? Who are the characters that people are really excited about? Are there plot lines that really popped off where people are like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that happened!’. And it’s the same with the Wattpad platform, but even more granular. Readers can comment on the paragraph on the Wattpad platform. So we know very specifically, like if a specific moment within that novel just really upset fans or made fans really lean in—there’s a wonderful title on our live-action team’s slate where they’ve bumped up a character from truthfully being more of a secondary character to being part of the primary storyline because that character was such a fan favorite. So we don’t really bring people [users of the platform(s)] in necessarily to have that conversation of what we should and shouldn’t develop, but we do read the comments and we do listen to what the fans honestly are responding to and want to be true to that as we do look to those adaptations.”
This is something I witnessed firsthand while reading more about HAWK, whose author we also got the chance to interview. Across Wattpad and social media, there was constant commentary (positive and otherwise) from fans over the history of the different iterations of the project. Bright emphasized how integral that connection between readers and authors is, especially for adding weight to online communities.
“It starts on the platform itself. When people are commenting as the creators are creating those episodes before the studio’s team is even thinking about an adaptation version, the creators are having a direct connection with fans and almost an immediate response, which is so fantastic.”
“It kind of makes you feel like you’re a real part of and really taking action with that community. Aside from maybe a Reddit thread or a Twitter [X, formerly known as Twitter] thread, there’s not really a hub in traditional media for people to come together and comment on those things. And I think Wattpad and WEBTOON are really special in the way that they highlight the community and the community uplifts the titles.”
Representation and the Growth of the Platforms
One of the motivating factors for audiences and authors alike on Wattpad and WEBTOON is the lack of content they want from traditional media platforms. Bright explained that, unlike a lot of traditional media, Wattpad and WEBTOON lack a specific mandate about what type of story is a successful one; audiences indicate what they like and the studio is responsive to that. I asked her for her thoughts about this phenomenon, both in terms of the unique kinds of stories people create and the kinds of representation that this fosters.
“I think people just decide they’re going to write those [representative and diverse] stories themselves and are going to exist on this platform because that’s the creative [content] that they need to get off their chest. And then we get to be in such a fantastic position where we can look at these titles and help bring them to, hopefully, the next iteration of their life cycle.”
“Because the audience and the data are externally facing compared to streaming platforms that don’t really share who’s watching what, and when, and demographics, we can see all of that and we can see that readership. I can go to a [TV] buyer and say, ‘Here are the tens of millions of people who love this show, who want to see this made into a show’ and leverage that community to help make a buyer feel more confident in taking that risk. Whether it’s that they haven’t delved into sci-fi before or it’s a different [kind of] storyline [than they’re used to]. I think the metric side helps give confidence to the marketplace. I think representation and authenticity help give us better creative source material because when you’re writing from your own perspective, your own voice, and your own experience, that comes across in the page.
“And I think even if that representation isn’t something that you personally have experienced, that specificity resonates with such a global audience in a different way. And it’s so great to see that in these stories. Truthfully, the animation industry I think has been several years behind its live-action counterpart in terms of representation. And it’s so great to see queer stories on the platform that aren’t about the characters being queer. They just happen to be queer, but we’re in [for example] a sci-fi, fantasy-action adventure setting. It’s how the real world is. And it’s great to see that in such an authentic way. […] It’s just the human experience. And I think we have the responsibility as storytellers to tell the human experience. If we’re only seeing that through one specific lens, then we’re not doing our job.”
The stories on Wattpad and WEBTOON cross tons of demographics, especially age. Bright explained that the bulk of the platforms’ audience is Gen Z and younger, meaning a core segment of the platform user base grew up using cell phones and the internet to consume content. Considering how digital forward and device-friendly the studio’s projects are, I wanted to understand how Wattpad WEBTOON Studios planned to grow its slate of content outside of South Korea and the Americas.
“I mean, we’ve had great partnerships already. A través de mi ventana which we sold through Netflix Spain, did phenomenally well. I think that’s kind of an understatement. And we do have partnerships all over the world. I think in terms of expansion, we’re just here to try to serve both platforms. And because we have creators from all over the world, because we have languages—Wattpad has over 55 different languages. WEBTOON has, I think, seven different languages on the platform. So there’s an audience and stories that need to be told in all of those regions. Our hope is that we can help facilitate opportunities for as many titles as possible in as many territories as possible.”
I asked Bright if there are any underdog stories right now that she thinks deserve more love from audiences. She, like most anyone keeping up with webtoons, comics, or manga, expressed how impossible it is to pick just one thing out of the countless amazing series that are coming out day after day, too fast for anyone to ever fully catch up on everything.
“I think that sometimes the biggest hurdle is just there’s so much content that it’s hard to find all the ones that you love because there’s so many great ones. I’ll be having a conversation with someone and they’ll be like, ‘oh, have you ever read this webtoon?’ I’m like, ‘no, how have I never read that one?’ I think it’s a great sandbox in that way where you can dive down the rabbit hole of looking at what are people saying online are their favorite webtoons or talk to your friends and everyone’s going to have different recommendations. I don’t know if I can pick one. There are so many that I hope that with adaptation and opportunity, we can help bring more awareness to other titles that hopefully can have that same expansive audience that we’ve seen with great success like LORE OLYMPUS.”
Genre Evolution and Involvement for Bright at Wattpad WEBTOON Studios
To close, I wanted to ask about any effects that uniting the leadership of two platforms had on the audiences of those platforms and how directly involved Bright plans to be with different series going forward. She first explained how Wattpad WEBTOON Studios both benefits from and builds upon how younger generations perceive animation.
“I think there will always be cross-pollination because both companies have so much of the same ethos and DNA structure to them, which is that democratization of storytelling and really fan and creator-first perspective. But I will say that on a larger scale, just in entertainment in general, I think younger generations don’t view animation as bifurcated in the way that I think older generations always have, where you would talk to an adult and they would say, ‘Well, I don’t watch cartoons, cartoons are for kids.’ That doesn’t exist anymore. So I think you see a lot more blurred lines in terms of people watching adult content and watching animation. If you’re a big action, Kill Bill Tarantino type person, go watch Blue-Eyed Samurai because it’s fantastic and action-driven and will give you all the things that you want, but it’s animated. So I think those lines are blurred in such a beautiful way. And I think our studio really hopes to continue to service titles that can allow audiences to want to hop between the content that we’re producing.”
As for involvement with projects in the future, Bright explained how she and other executives stay involved with things in production while also making space to be involved in something they have a personal affinity toward.
“All of our executives really operate as both development executives and current executives [executives that oversee projects that are currently airing]. So when something does go into production, we’re still boots on the ground. We’re here to support the creatives. Obviously, we’re closest to the story, closest to that data, closest to the audience. So we want to make sure that we’re staying true to all of those things, whether it be a Season 1, a Season 2, or a Season 10. So we continue to support on that creative front. And then I think in terms of animation studios specifically, we really look at those partnerships and opportunities the same way we would bringing on a writer or someone in that capacity. I’m not going to bring a writer on who doesn’t have the contextual experience or connective tissue that makes them excited about a project. That wouldn’t make sense to bring someone on who doesn’t connect in that way. And we really do look at animation studios in that same capacity where, if we have a title from a Spanish-speaking creator, and it’s a Spanish title, I want to see what our opportunities are with Spanish studios, whether it be in Spain or Latin America. We have great partnerships with studios all over the world. So we want to be as authentic as possible, not just from the writing side, but also from the production side.”
We’d like to thank Sydney Bright for taking the time to speak to us about Wattpad WEBTOON Studios and her own perspective on the ever-growing animation industry. The studio has many projects in the works and we at Anime Corner are very much looking forward to how those projects turn out.
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