Fairground Entertainment, a new generative AI content studio and distribution venture started by former Xumo-CEO Colin-Petrie Norris, has named one of its first content partners and plans for three fully AI-based TV series.
Under a multi-deal partnership announced Friday, Fairground will adapt titles from Rogue Matter’s comic book and graphic novel IP and help co-create them into TV-ready episodic streaming series that are scheduled to debut later this year.
The first programming slate includes TV shows based on Rogue Matter’s Ketcher: Origins; Don’t Tell My Wife I’m a Cult Leader; and The Time Trader – with options to pursue additional IP.
StreamTV Insider sat down with Petrie-Norris, Fairground founder and CEO, to discuss the newest partnership, content strategy and learnings so far in the company's early efforts on a mission to bring together indie and small studio creators with best-in-class AI tools so they can deliver original - but previously static format - storytelling in new audio-visual versions made for the TV screen.
In partnering with Rogue Matter, Petrie-Norris said the company and its IP made a lot of sense to Fairground as it explored the market. With strong storylines, characters and existing artwork, comic books and graphic novels are mediums that he believes lend naturally to AI-created TV versions.
A focus of Fairground is to bring AI together with stories in an authentic way that resonates with consumers. When it comes to comic books in general, he believes the medium delivers some of the greatest stories out there with well-known names and franchises like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, DC and Marvel, just to name a few.
“These started off as not huge circulation stories, but they’re very well written and very well crafted,” he told StreamTV Insider. “Our ability to bring AI together with those stories and bring them to life in a new way, I think, is pretty unique.”
The series created by Fairground based on Rogue Matter IP won’t be a complete reimagining for TV but rather use AI “to transform two dimensional cells of stories into living, moving, breathing video” while staying true to the artist, style, mood and story of the original source material, he affirmed – adding that AI enables Fairground do that very effectively.
Petrie-Norris thinks there’s opportunity to reach new audiences with the stories but also noted existing loyal followings of various sizes for Rogue Matter’s comic books and graphic novels, where current fans stand to enjoy the characters and stories they already love but watch them in a new medium via streaming TV series.
Exact timing of the releases and where they’ll be available has yet to be disclosed, although all three are expected to debut before year’s end.
Petrie-Norris hinted at “a whole number of platforms” for distribution that are in the pipe to be shared in the not-too-distant future, saying that since seed funding for Fairground was announced in May, “we’ve been overwhelmed with interest from distribution.” But for now, he stayed mum on specifics other than to say that distribution plans are global and the company is currently doing multi-language series.
As for format, Fairground is still experimenting.
Per Petrie-Norris, series will broadly align with typical multiple 20-30-minute TV episodes, although some may be slightly shorter, in part to honor the original artist’s ideas around chapters. But a benefit of streaming is not being locked into a standard 23-minute programming block timeframe and that one can try out different lengths.
It’s been interesting, he said, playing around in terms of thinking about how a certain number of comic book cells equates to minutes of content and adapting around that. And it’s an area where the team can get creative thanks to the nature of streaming TV.
AI content tools rapidly evolving, but story still matters
Fairground officially came on the scene in May with $4 million in seed funding led by Viant Technologies but has been in the works for about a year.
As the company pushed forward with efforts Petrie-Norris described a lot of learnings in that period as he immersed himself in the world of entertainment powered by AI and saw capabilities of generative AI content creation tools rapidly evolve.
“Nine months ago, you’d get six fingers on the hand of a character. You’d have a foot on backwards,” he described.
Fast forward briefly and now he said it’s to the point of whether light refractions inside of a character’s ring are accurate.
But while tech advancements are impressive, one of the most important lessons Petrie-Norris said he has learned, and core to Fairground’s mission, is that even with technology providing the production underpinnings: “story matters.”
Yes, AI can generate exciting and interesting visuals and “do that in spades” – but Petrie-Norris emphasized that when it comes to engaging an audience for 30-50 minutes, “the story matters more than anything.”
In particular, it needs to be stories and characters that tap into human emotions, be it aspiration, fear, excitement, what have you, in order to make a connection, resonate and engage viewers – a vital element that models and machines may not yet be up to.
He described some forays where Fairground came up with projects that were visually beautiful but didn’t think much about story.
“They don’t work as well as those where you start with a great story,” he explained.
That’s where Fairground is looking to existing IP as well as indie creators to drive strong, emotional storytelling forward in a new format that can be produced in an efficient matter.
“When you bring that together with AI, that’s when the magic one plus one equals three happens,” Petrie-Norris said.
And while Fairground is all about the power of AI, he emphasized production is still “a very human thing” – with individuals to small teams working across different projects from script and storyboarding to visuals and sound editing – but where the process and final result is accelerated by technology and the help of AI.
“There is as much craft in telling these stories as you can imagine,” the founder said, while adding AI and its creator community approach to production makes it “very cost effective” for Fairground and its partners.
Adapting two-dimensional stories for the TV screen
The work with Rogue Matter is indicative of the larger content strategy for Fairground, where it’s looking to adapt somewhat static or two-dimensional stories into audio-visual TV series.
Another project in the works, for example, is the company’s first true crime series, which Petrie-Norris said they’re putting the finishing touches on.
It’s doing three shows to start based on true crimes from the Victorian era in England and pulling from first-hand documents like police records to retell the stories through AI. It’s got similar idea for true crimes from the Wild West or mob bosses.
It's that type of work that he thinks makes the genAI-created TV series medium special.
“You can take stories which are not in the moving picture medium and very powerfully adapt them into shows for television. And do that at big scale and at reasonable cost,” he said.
Ultimately Fairground plans to release eight to nine productions by year-end.
As it picks and releases projects, the goal is not necessarily to make content that appeals to everyone, but to find niche segments and lean on streaming technology to match the right content to the right audience and make it more targeted. And with efficiency from AI production, Petrie-Norris believes it can quickly look at data and improve on content.
That also goes to its larger vision of tapping into and exposing a global world of creators to help produce the projects, where he spoke enthusiastically about the level of motivation and engagement of teams participating to create the adaptations – to whom Fairground also provides skills development - and share learnings internally about how they’re using AI tools and keeping up with what’s working best.
Fairground is also getting out in the world to promote its partners, including plans for ComiCon with Rogue Matter to ramp up excitement for the forthcoming TV series.
And while Petrie-Norris described how it’s been astounding to see how rapidly technology is improving (where another one of the company’s aims is to help these indie or budding creators keep up with the latest and constantly changing tech innovations and bring their own unique stories to life) – what he’s most excited about is the trajectory and the creator community-building.
“Training, development, support, building the community is key,” he said. “Because if you don’t bring along a group of people with you, it’s all for naught.”