Honing Cebu creative skills; maximize digital ‘gold mine’

CEBU, Philippines — Cebu creative sector prime movers aim to strengthen Cebu’s potential in tapping the multi-billion-dollar digital creative industry.

This will be among the top topics that will be tackled in a series of events set by the Creative sector players in Cebu under the Cebu Business Month (CBM 2021) celebration.

According to CBM-2021 Creative Industry chairperson Marie Ernestine Denise Fajatin, while the creative sector in Cebu is still considered a “young” industry, there is a big potential to cultivate the rich talents in film making, animation, Youtube content providers, and illustrators, among others.

Since the creative industry covers a broad spectrum of sub-sectors, creative sector, the lucrative digital creative sector has gained industry players’ attention.

The goal is to help enable these digital creative talents to maximize the creative technologies and help them in creating sound business modules, to expose them to the global creative digital stage.

The creative entertainment for instance, is a “gold mine” which Cebu has to work on, starting with creating of events that promote awareness and gather the creative entertainment talents and enthusiasts in Cebu.

Part of the Creative industry events is the opening of “Creative Entertainment Week,” to be championed by Lawrence Panganiban.

Panganiban, whose family is starting an animation academy in Cebu, said Cebu should flaunt its ability and high capabilities in sharing the US$270 billion animation business in the world.

Because of this, a Creative Entertainment Week (CEW) will be launched in the first week of October 2021, of which different events are lined up to promote Cebu’s creative entertainment edge.

This includes talks about Film (October 2), video game industry (October 4), animation (October 5), original content (October 6), komiks, music and theater (October 7), and investors summit (October 9).

Cebu has already gained attention by top animation studios including those based in Hollywood, with presence of small animation studios here which supplies works in Hollywood. But, this has yet to be given full attention to.

The entertainment sector, including the animation and video game industries are considered as part of the few winners in the pandemic-stricken economy. Reportedly, these two industries grew by 60 percent in 2020.

Panganiban mentioned that experts in Hollywood and Japan are not discounting the potential of Cebu to grow in this particular niche.

During the one week CEW, organizers are bringing in global experts from different creative entertainment fields, most likely virtually.

If Cebu will be able to get even one percent of the US$2.7 billion animation industry, it would be good for Cebu’s economy.

“We have to do away from starving artist mindset” rather Cebuanos are urged to cultivate their natural mindset as word-class creatives and monetize these talents.

In 2020, the global gaming market was valued at $162.32 billion. It is projected to increase to $295.63 billion by 2026.