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Image industry in Haute-Savoie

A growing industry...

The image industry federates all stakeholders producing and distributing images, whether real or virtual, fi xed or motion, working in audiovisual, animation and video games fields as well as, more generally, professions based on interactivity of web and mobile techniques. While, in the Haute-Savoie region, the Annecy international animated film Festival and Market greatly contributes to the reputation of this industry, this is also because an increasing number of stakeholders have chosen the banks of Lake Annecy or, to a lesser extent, the area in France near Geneva. Some leading French firms have based their headquarters or creative studio there, boosted by an extremely buoyant market.

While, for a long period of time, the different professions in this sector have widely differed from each other in terms of tools, contents, culture and stakes, thereby making synergies hard and indeed impossible, today this division is gradually disappearing. Internet has profoundly changed this situation through the elimination of intermediaries between content creators and consumers, thus allowing companies to establish direct contact with their targets. However, on different markets, companies mobilise similar know-how and profiles: animators, developers, game designers, ergonomists, community managers.

Spurred on by CITIA, the city of moving images, a public structure set up in 2006 to help local stakeholders in the sector and promote the advantages of this territory, and supporting the festival and the market, this industry continues to increase in terms of professionalism and identity. The idea was thus brought up to group its members in an emblematic site. In 2013, a refurbished paper mill indoor market on the outskirts of Annecy will accommodate the economic heart of the image centre over an area of 7’000 square meters.

275 That is, according to the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies, the number of companies working in Haute-Savoie in the multimedia sector, excluding freelancers (Altimax, Caribara animation, Daesign, Ipso TV, Itycom, JMC production, Limpid animation studio, Megalo & company, NetDesign, Novamotion, onde M, Pïnka, Ubisoft Simulations...).