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Promote Yourself: Composite Films launches crowdfunding campaign for To Build a Fire

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French production company, Composite Films launches crowdfunding campaign for its polar western, To Build a Fire

On Monday, October 27th Composite Films has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo with the objective to collect 25,000€ in contributions to finance the 2D animated short film adaptation of Jack London’s famous short story To Build a Fire directed by award winning and London based, FX Goby.  You can see the first few images on Facebook by clicking here. The film will be finished by the beginning of 2016 for the 100th anniversary of Jack London’s death. Within only 15 days of our campaign, we have managed to surpass the 10,000€ mark with over 100 contributors! The campaign finishes December 22nd, so there are only less than 40 days left to get a part of the action!

Who?

To Build a Fire brings together the unique vision of FX Goby, director of award winning En tus Brazos, and the expertise of Samuel François-Steininger, producer and founder of Composite Films. Located in Lyon, the birthplace of cinematography, our production company is a part of the cultural vitality of Europe, and with achieving the goal of 25,000€ will be a fantastic way to showcase the French savoir-faire at an international level.

What?

Adapted from Jack London’s short story, To Build a Fire, a 10-minute 2D film, tells the terrible and tragic tale of a trapper and his dog crossing the polar tundra of the Yukon, a territory located in the arctic circle of North America near Alaska. The novella, essentially descriptive and void of dialogue, represents a veritable challenge for adaptation. The minimal style and refined animation of FX Goby will be evident through his work on sound and staging. He will replace London’s narrative words of the burning cold with focusing on the intense sensations, such as the vicious progression of freezing blood as it backflows, seeking refuge in the heart of the man that is fighting hypothermia.

Why?

Monday, October 27th, we launched a campaign for crowdfunding on Indiegogo with the objective of receiving 25,000€ to fund the film. With this money, Composite Films will be able to cover the costs of preproduction (including shooting in the Alps, animation production of 10 minutes- the first version, animation testing, etc.), to create a universe of sound for the film with a sound designer, pay the team of artists involved in our project, promote our film and find new contributors. In exchange for their donation, the crowdfunders will have access to tons of unique compensations, from a dogsled race in the breathtaking mountain ranges of le Jura and les Vosges, to T-shirts, Christmas edition handmade finger puppets of the characters, a limited edition Leatherman® multi-tool, a collector’s edition book of illustrations, and effigy figurines of the characters in To Build a Fire!

When?

The crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo will last two months. The money received will allow us to go into production immediately.

 

2016 will not only mark the 100th year after Jack London’s death, but also his 140th birthday. Thus the goal is to finish production by the end of 2015 to be able to widely distribute our film to festivals throughout the next year to celebrate this double anniversary.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read about our project! We are readily available to answer any questions you may have, conduct interviews or provide you with any details to enrich your articles or reports. Any and all passing the word along about our campaign will help! You can also check out, like, follow and share our official To Build a Fire Facebook and Twitter pages. If you would like to download our Press Kit, comprised of key visuals of To Build a Fire’s design and artwork, as well as portraits of the producer and director, click here.

 

To Build a Fire film team

Samuel François-Steininger | Producer 

sfs@compositefilms.fr

FX Goby | Director

fxgoby@gmail.com

Marie Corberand | Executive Producer

mc@compositefilms.fr

Alexander Lawrence | Community Manager 

cmcompositefilms@gmail.com

Marine Wong Kwok Chuen | Media Coordinator

marine.wkc@gmail.com

And all of the artists involved in the preparation of the film.

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News: DHX MEDIA AND CHINA’S CNTV TO LAUNCH NEW CHILDREN’S CONTENT PLATFORM

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DHX-medialogo

DHX MEDIA AND CHINA’S CNTV TO LAUNCH NEW CHILDREN’S CONTENT PLATFORM

– DHX providing more than 700 half hours of Mandarin content –

Halifax, November 7, 2014 – DHX Media Ltd. (“DHX” or the “Company”) (TSX: DHX.A, DHX.B), a key player internationally in the creation of content for families and children, today announced it has entered into a cooperation agreement with China National Television (CNTV), the new-media broadcast division of China Central Television (CCTV), China’s state broadcaster, to launch a new streaming service exclusively dedicated to offering DHX’s children’s entertainment content across multiple platforms nationally in China. In the revenue sharing deal, DHX will provide more than 700 half hours of children’s content initially for the new service, which is expected to offer video on demand (VOD), advertising video on demand (AVOD) and subscription video on demand (SVOD) services. Some of the series DHX will be providing in Mandarin for the new streaming service include, Teletubbies, Inspector Gadget, Madeline and Sonic the Hedgehog, to be followed by additional DHX titles such as Caillou, Super Why!, Monster Math Squad and others. The as-yet-unnamed service will be available nationally in the People’s Republic of China (excluding Hong Kong S.A.R., Macau S.A.R. and Taiwan). A launch date has not yet been set.

The deal was announced today at a signing ceremony attended by Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, in Beijing. DHX President and Chief Operating Officer, Steven DeNure, who represented DHX as a delegate in the Government of Canada’s official trade mission, stated: “Launching a new children’s streaming service with China’s official state broadcaster represents a tremendous opportunity to deliver DHX brands to a massive, emerging market. We are delighted and honoured to have been able to sign this cooperation agreement in Beijing today, as part of Prime Minister Harper’s trade delegation.”

 

Michael Hirsh, Vice Chairman of DHX Media, added: “Over the coming years we look forward to growing DHX’s global footprint, and critical to that will be expanding into China, one the world’s largest markets. In partnering with CNTV on this new streaming service, we feel we have the best possible collaborator for making that expansion a reality.”

DHX anticipates providing content on a continual basis to the new service as new series are produced at its animation studios in Halifax, Vancouver and Toronto, and through external production partners. In addition, the Company anticipates expanding the platform’s offering as additional series in its existing library of more than 10,000 half hours are dubbed into Mandarin.

About DHX Media Ltd.

DHX Media Ltd. (www.dhxmedia.com), a leading creator, producer, marketer and broadcaster of family entertainment, is recognized globally for such brands as Yo Gabba Gabba!, Caillou, Teletubbies, In the Night Garden, Inspector Gadget, Johnny Test, and the multi-award winning Degrassi franchise. DHX Media Ltd. is the owner of Family Channel, the most-viewed children’s television channel in Canada, as well as the channels Disney Junior (English & French) and Disney XD in Canada. The Company markets and distributes its library of more than 10,000 half-hours of entertainment programming worldwide, and licenses its owned properties through its dedicated consumer products business. DHX Media Ltd.’s full-service international licensing agency, Copyright Promotions Licensing Group Ltd. (CPLG), represents numerous entertainment, sport and design brands. DHX Media Ltd. has offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Munich and Amsterdam, and is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols DHX.A and DHX.B.

About CNTV/CCTV

China Network Television (CNTV) is owned by CCTV International Network Ltd., which started broadcasting from December 28, 2009; its websites are www.cctv.com and www.cntv.cn. CNTV Services cover multiple terminals, such as video streaming websites, IPTV, mobile TV (mobile phone and tablet), OTT TV, with coverage in more than 190 countries. CNTV has six international language channels, which are English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian and Korean, additionally five local language channels, which are Mongolian, Uygur language, Kazakhstan language and Korean. CNTV broadcasts to all internet-based video distribution platforms.

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward looking statements with respect to DHX including the timing of the launch date of the as-yet-unnamed new children’s streaming service. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties and are based on information currently available to the Company. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations, among other things, include risks factors discussed in materials filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time including matters discussed under “Risk Factors” in the Company’s short form prospectuses dated November 14, 2013 and December 31, 2013, Annual Information Form, and annual Management Discussion and Analysis. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

For more information, please contact:

Investor relations, please contact:
Joann Head – Manager, Investor Relations, DHX Media Ltd.
joann.head@dhxmedia.com 
+1 416-977-7018

Media, please contact:
Shaun Smith – Director, Corporate Communications, DHX Media Ltd.
shaun.smith@dhxmedia.com
+1 416-977-6071

Or Aimee Norman, DDA Blueprint Public Relations

aimee@ddablueprint.com

+44 (0) 20 8985 4708

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News: Motion Computing CL920 Rugged Windows Tablet PC Overview

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If you’ve ever owned a Motion Computing product like the LE1600 or the LE1700 you know that until recently no one even came close to them in the Tablet Pc market and I would argue that even the Surface Pro 3  doesn’t quite get it right as far as my tests have revealed. In contrast, the old school LE1600 still pretty much works perfectly well as a digital sketchbook armed with Sketchbook Pro as long as you don’t choke it to death with the bloated XP Service packs Microsoft churned out to fix their security holes.

Anyway, today a Motion Computing partner CTS-Complete Tablet Solutions sent me an email about Motion’s newest endeavor the CL920 and at first glance it looks pretty sweet which doesn’t surprise me. At 1.9 lbs, (which is admittedly a bit bulky) armed with SSD drives, a 10″ Gorilla Glass 3 10 finger touch screen,  a spiffy Intel® Atomâ„¢ N2600 Dual Core Processor, sleek stylus, 8 hours of battery life, front and rear digital cameras, SD cards slot as well as micro HDMI, it’s really like a space age version of my old LE1600 FINALLY amped up for the 21st century. What also doesn’t surprise me is you can’t find anything on the site about pricing so I’m quite sure it’s going to be hella expensive. But still, with the Gorilla Glass and rugged chassis it likely won’t be scratching like the reports I’ve had about the Citniq Companion and the Surface Pro 3 screens are apparently doing. I’ve inquired about price and as soon as I know more I’ll update this post.

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News: 3dCutout 1.5 released

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Wow! A very cool plugin that just came on to my radar is 3dCutout 1.5, which allows you to make Flash-like cut out animation in Autodesk 3D Studio Max. It’s  a pretty interesting tool and while I have yet to try it myself, from the video above it seems fairly straight forward. Basically you create art in Photoshop or your art program of choice (that has layers), set parameters, build a rig and it gives you IK bones that let you pose a character similar to Flash but with a lot more tools at your disposal, including of course a 3D camera as well as an auto key feature. It even has asset management. Harmony does a fair amount of these features as well but I would argue that it’s a bit more limiting since Max also has particle effects as well as compositing tools, plus it includes a MUCH more robust user base than Harmony.

At only$250 it’s not a bad price to pay, plus with Autodesk having subscription options, it might just be the sorely needed Flash killer people have sought after for decades since Adobe routinely ignores all requests from animators to add features catered to us.

You can find out more about 3dCutout 1.5 at their website.

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News: Apple’s Next Hit Will Be a Surface Pro 3 Clone?

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Bloomberg is reporting that Apple’s next big product will be a tablet with a stylus something Mac artists have been salivating over for many years. They point to a number of factors, one being the success of Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 as well as Samsung’s stylus pen line such as the Note 2, Note 4 Note 10.1 as well as the Note Pro 12.

Samsung debuted its first, much maligned and hugely successful Galaxy Note — the first phone with a bigger-than-5-inch screen — in September, 2011. For two years afterwards, Apple was content to present incremental improvements to the iPhone. Compared with the iPhone 5, the iPhone 5s just added a fingerprint sensor and an improved camera (plus a few other features that most consumers didn’t care about).

Meanwhile Apple carefully observed the “phablet” market, watched other handset makers follow Samsung’s example and erode its market share, and experimented with ways to make a big phone easier to navigate one-handed. It struck just when Samsung started posting lower profits, because of the increased competitive pressure.

This time it isn’t a Samsung product Apple is watching, but Microsoft’s Surface Pro.

Another article from back in January over at Business Week states that Apple has filed for patents using a stylus in conjunction with a tablet. Interesting!

Stylus

I think it would be in Apple’s best interest to create a product like this considering their biggest announcement this season was a higher resolution screen and some thinner iPads. Bleh. An Apple tablet with a stylus would blow the doors off of the Mac line and it’s likely set everyone into a fever pitch about styluses something us artists would love to see happen. What do you think? Would you like to see Apple finally come out with a Tablet?