Celebrated animator turns to new platforms
Sullivan has also turned his talents to real-life heroes of the African-American experience with the Afrokids brand of videos and books.
This winter, Afrokids comes down the runway with a new video game presented as a mobile application called Tuskegee Redtails, which captures the air combat manuevers employed by the African-American pioneer aviators of World War II.
Like his other products, Tuskegee Redtails fills the enormous gap for wholesome, inspiring products geared to African-American youth. Leo Sullivan Multimedia Inc. is forging a new market segment, as Sullivan describes in the documentary A Great Day in Gaming: From Queens to Silicon Valley: The Gerald A. Lawson Story.
Although the African-American engineer Jerry Lawson gave the $23 billion gaming industry its first big sparks with the arcade game Demolition Derby and the first cartridge video game the ChannelF, almost no products have been designed for the African-American audience.
Lawson told an audience of black game developers last March, just before his death, that blacks must approach the industry as producers instead of as just consumers. For Sullivan, it means translating his Hollywood animation experience into investment opportunities to attract capital for new products.
It is a topic on the mind of many of the 12th annual 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology as they meet in the Innovation & Equity Symposium 2012: Capitalizing Creativity: Job Creation and Innovation on Jan. 15 at B. Smith-Union Station in Washington, D.C.
Sullivan sees animation and gaming as a sure route to job creation, working with students at Marcus Garvey Charter School in Los Angeles' Crenshaw neighborhood to teach animation.
"I always liked to draw when I was in school," he explains. Animation made the city's Disney a media powerhouse, and Sullivan sees no reason to miss the opportunity to grow exponentially.
The mobile application platform takes advantage of the high rates of usage of mobile technology by African-American consumers, particularly youth.
Tuskegee Redtails has been endorsed by the national organization of Tuskegee Airmen, who recognized Sullivan's history of embracing educational media.
The game, which uses P51 Mustangs, P47s and P40s in spectacular 3D graphics, is rated for all ages.
Sullivan wants youth to understand the lesson of the pioneering aviators so that they can become fellow pioneers in the gaming industry.
