Hasta La Motion!

Kids’ entertainment veteran Michael Carrington is vacating his office as VP of global content & executive producer at London’s HIT Entertainment to take up the role of CEO at The Foundation, a UK production company under the Zodiak Kids banner. Christopher Keenan will be stepping into Carrington’s shoes at HIT Entertainment.

Carrington will work with The Foundation’s MD Gwen Hughes on current productions, which include Fort Boyard Ultimate Challenge, Let’s Play, The Floogals and animated hit Tickety Toc, and will spearhead development of future programs. Carrington’s new position follows a restructuring shuffle of Zodiak’s leadership, and he is the first hire under the parent company’s new CEO Jean-Philippe Randisi.

In a company statement, Carrington says that leaving HIT was a difficult decision but the opportunity to work across different formats, genres and age groups was a key factor. Carrington joined HIT a year and a half ago from Turner Broadcasting, where he headed up the content team for EMEA. Prior to this, he served as controller of CBeebies from 2006 to 2010.

Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), the technology subsidiary of Prime Focus has inked a strategic agreement with FX Networks to deliver cloud enabled DAX production workflow solution including Digital Dailies, DAX BOX and DAX Mobile for all FX shows and pilots.

FX is the home of many critically-acclaimed and award-winning hit dramas such as Sons of Anarchy, Justified, The Americans, Anger Management, The American Horror Story and the upcoming Guillermo del Toro thriller The Strain. The deal, struck at the NAB SHOW 2014, marks FX as one of the first wave of buyers for the DAX Box, a DVR-like set-top box with secure HD streaming at home, office or theatre, launched at the annual broadcast tradeshow in Las Vegas.

“We’re pleased that our first major deal after becoming a part of PFT is with a Fox organisation and will incorporate our joint development effort resulting in the DAX BOX,” said PFT president – North America and former CEO of DAX Patrick Macdonald-King. “PFT’s CLEAR Media ERP technology platform, DAX Digital Dailies applications in conjunction with our outstanding Los Angeles based service team offers tremendous value to our customers.”

The new agreement strengthens PFT’s relationship with Fox further with existing DAX deals including those with 20^th Century Fox TV and Fox Television Studios in the US, and its flagship CLEAR Media ERP deployment at Star TV in India.

Come 2 October, 2014 and the fans of Vishal Bhardwaj’s brand of cinema will be treated with yet another masterpiece in the making – Haider – which also happens to be the last in the trilogy of the filmmaker’s fascination with Shakespearean plays.

The trailer of the feature released yesterday on the online streaming giant – YouTube – and has already garnered close to 1.3 million views (at the time of writing). This film an adaptation of ‘Hamlet’ will see Shahid Kapoor reprise the role of Haider, a young man who returns home to Kashmir on receiving news of his father’s disappearance. But, not only does he learn that security forces have detained his father for harbouring militants, but also that his mother (Tabu) is in a relationship with his very own uncle (Kay Kay Menon). Soon Haider learns that his uncle is responsible for the gruesome murder of his father, and what follows is his journey to avenge his father’s death.

Speaking exclusively to AnimationXpress.com Govardhan Vigraham (2^nd Unit director and VFX supervisor on ‘Haider’) says: “The film is shot in the troublesome areas of Kashmir, though we didn’t face many problems. We experienced erratic weather conditions while shooting there with heavy rainfall and snow around the clock.”

It has been learnt that the film is currently in its post production stages, with Digikore Studios delivering the VFX for this movie. “Schedule was one of the biggest hurdles in order to finish everything on time, and we are still working on the remaining bits. The VFX used in the film has blended well with the narrative, and we are confident that the audience will be spellbound with the visuals,” Vigraham exults.

Coming back to the trailer of Haider, it certainly has the aura of Bhardwaj’s flavour of music and picturisation of the pivotal characters is fabulous. The ‘paradise on earth’ has been brilliantly captured on lens by Pankaj Kumar (DOP) and ably supported with some thought provoking lyrics by Gulzar saab.

Vigraham adds: “We had nearly 40-50 artists from Digikore Studios working on the project at any given time. We have done some great CG as well as green screen composites apart from other deliverables for this feature and are really positive of the result so far.”

We at AnimationXpress.com, hope that unlike Bhradwaj’s earlier outings with ‘Maqbool’ and ‘Omkara’ this Shakespeare adaptation scorches the box-office and brings the master director the much needed commercial success, to add to his critical acclaim.

Burger King joined in the 2014 San Francisco Pride Celebration & Parade, June 28- 29, with the introduction of a new burger, the Proud Whopper. Customers at the 1200 Market Street Burger King restaurant in San Francisco were given the challenge of working out the distinctive nature of the new burger. Ultimately they discovered that despite the colourful wrapper the burger was the same inside. Burger King changed its Facebook cover, launched a rainbow #BeYourWay Facebook pic, and encouraged Twitter followers to share their origami version of the Proud Whopper wrapper using the #BeYourWay #ProudWhopper hashtags.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBkAAortU_g

Credits

The Proud Whopper campaign was developed at DAVID, Miami, by chief creative officer Anselmo Ramos, executive creative director Roberto Fernandez, associate creative director Russell Dodson, art director Bruno Luglio, copywriter Ivan Guerra, junior art director Rodrigo Bistene, head of global production Veronica Beach, producer Renata Neumann, business manager Libby Fine, managing director Paulo Fogaça, account director Ricardo Honegger and account supervisor Rafael Giorgino working with Burger King SVP Global Brand Management Fernando Machado and Chief Marketing Officer, North America Eric Hirschhorn.

Filming was shot by director Henry-Alex Rubin via Smuggler with executive producer Lisa Tauscher, head of production Andrew Colon, line producer Erin Wile, director of photography Matthew Woolf.

Editing was done at Rock Paper Scissors by editor Conor O’Neill with executive producers Linda Carlson and Dave Sellars, producer Justine Smollan, assistant editors Vanessa Yuille, David Sullivan and Lorraine Arden.

Online editing and colouring was done at Spy Post, San Francisco, by executive producer Lori Joesph, Flame artists Darren Orr and Jesse Boots, and colourist Carey Burens.

Mixing was done at Polarity Post, San Francisco, by mixers Patrick Fitzgerald and Jerel Bromley.

Music was produced at Beacon Street Studios, with executive producer Adrea Lavezzoli.

Take a dip, dive or splash and be rest assured that your design-y temporary tattoos won’t rub off due to a little H20! For more info visit: tattly.com Creative Direction: Nic Annette Miller Video and Edit: Ace Boothby Set Assistant: Njeri Thande Babe in Water: Julia Alexander Shocked Kids: Lyvie, Ruby Mae, Cal, Finn, Hugh Special Thanks to: Kim Okochi and Bryn Heathman Music: Plage by Crystal Fighters