Indonesia’s ANTV picks up GoQuest’s ‘Ruby Ring’ for a remake

Independent content distributor GoQuest Media Ventures, who recently acquired the format rights to Ruby Ring (95 x 45’) from national public broadcaster Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), has announced that the Indonesian free to air television network ANTV (owned by Visi Media Asia) has picked this hit Korean drama series for a remake.

Titled, Bawang Putih Berkulit Merah, the remake is produced by Verona Pictures and cinema production house ANTV Pictures, a subsidiary of Visi Media Asia. The show premiered in January on ANTV with an initial run time of 95 x 40’ has proved to be a success, receiving an extremely good response from Indonesian audiences.

GoQuest Media Sales and Acquisitions VP Jimmy George said, “We are extremely excited to have secured our first remake deal with ANTV. This is a big step in the right direction for GoQuest especially as it is in line with our strategy for the year, where we aim to focus our efforts towards scripted formats. This latest pickup shows that Ruby Ring continues to resonate internationally even after its first success in 2013”.

Ruby Ring revolves around two sisters, Anna and Yana, whose lives change drastically by events that alter their destiny, putting them at a vital crossroads of their lives in conflict with each other for the perfect life.

 As they travel together, with Anna heading to her wedding rehearsal and Yana on her way to an audition, their car crashes leaving them unconscious with serious injuries and mutilated indistinguishable faces. At the time of the accident and as a coincidence Yana was wearing her sister’s ruby ring and hence is assumed to be Anna. Having recovered, envious and ambitious Yana decides to play along with the mistaken identity and lies to take away everything her sister has: her face, her love and her life. While Anna is determined to regain what rightfully belongs to her, Yana fights for the happiness she has stolen from her sister.

“We have had more than five years of partnership with GoQuest and are glad to collaborate again on this entertaining scripted series.  Doing a format adaptation is not easy as we have to do several adjustments to make it work for our audiences. Their vast catalog of stories and the understanding of our requirements helped us find a good and unique story for ANTV.  We are really happy with this collaboration and look forward to working on more such projects soon,” added ANTV Acquisition and Distribution senior manager Gunawan Goony.

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One Take Media Co. strengthens its Marathi movie library

Marathi film industry is one of the oldest cinema industries in India, having completed its 100 years. Stars like Ashok Saraf, Lakshmikant Berde, Sachin, Mahesh and the legend Dadasaheb Kondke have delivered back to back superhit films.

The Marathi film Industry is gaining recognition and acceptance internationally, both for its content and the performances of the actors. In fact it is one of the fastest-growing regional industries in India offering the audience something new and unique every time.

Looking at this potential for Marathi Films, One Take Media Co. (OTMC) has strengthened its Marathi movie library by acquiring more than 200 original Marathi movies. It also has more than 100 Hollywood Dubbed movies in Marathi in the same Library.

These Movies are available for distribution on various platforms of DTH, Cable, OTT and other platforms as well. The Library includes Premium movies like Tuzhi Mazhi Love Story, Yaaron Ki Yaari , IPL, Niyatiche Kaalchakra, Aik, Mukhvate, Dhadas and so on.

OTMC founder and CEO Anil Khera said, “In India more than seven in 10 people prefer to watch the content in their own language. India is a land of amalgamation of different languages. Cinema is a fantastic media of expression and various artists express themselves best in their native language. Hence offering content in all the preferred languages to our audiences is our aim. Hence, with this new offering of One Take Media Co. of varied library of Marathi Movies, our Marathi audience will have their share of entertainment”

Marathi originated from the Indo Aryan group of languages. Universally, there are roughly about 100 million Marathi speakers including India. It is among the top four most spoken languages in India and among the top 10 most spoken languages in the world.

One Take Media Co. has more than 10,000+ hours of content and covers almost all the genres. It has a varied range of content involving Hollywood Movies, Kids content, Cooking Content, Korean series and many more. The wide range of content are available in English and in all the Indian regional languages. These include Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Gujarati and Bhojpuri.

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Social isolation practice records increase in concurrent users on Steam platform by 20 mn

All around the world social isolation is being practiced to curb the spread of coronavirus infection. This results in more people than ever are using Valve’s digital gaming platform. Steam has counted a record-breaking 20 million concurrent users (as counted by SteamDB—20,313,451 to be precise), with 6.2 million of those people in-game.

A month ago we were all being very impressed when Steam hit 19 million concurrents, to put that number in perspective. And as for the 6.2 million in game, there were almost a million more players in-game back on New Year’s Day 2018 when PUBG was the shiny new thing. At the moment CS:GO is the game at the top of the Steam charts, and away from Steam it’s Call of Duty: Warzone that’s drawing in big numbers, with 15 million players in its first week. Looking at Steamcharts, you can see other upward swings for other games in recent days from Rainbow Six: Siege to DOTA 2.

Steam’s upward trend began in January when Chinese nationals began to self-isolate at the start of the COVID-19 crisis. On February 2nd, Steam’s previous record of 18,537,490 users – set in January 2018 – was surpassed, smashing the existing record by an impressive 300,000 to peak at 18,801,944 players.

While Valve has certainly benefited from all the extra time that people now have, renewed interest in its games means more content for the fans who enjoy playing them. Now, veteran players are awash with a surge of new people who might be experiencing a game for the first time. For them, it’s like Christmas time all over again.

It remains to be seen if Steam will continue to see such huge growth numbers. While continued quarantines and social isolation around the world are hardly helpful developments overall, they do contribute to a greater number of players on Steam and other gaming platforms.

 

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Novel Entertainment launching new ‘Horrid Henry’ publishing line

Novel Entertainment is launching a brand new publishing line based on the original stories from its award-winning animated TV series, Horrid Henry.

First out of the gate, and aimed firmly at the Horrid Henry audience of kids aged 7 to 11, the content takes the form of audio dramatisations from Novel Entertainment’s hit Horrid Henry TV series, featuring the show’s voice talent with additional narrative from Henry (voiced by Elizabeth Waterworth-Santo) and songs. The content will be available worldwide as downloads on major platforms such as Audible, Spotify, and iTunes and Amazon. The initial release will see 10 titles launch including Horrid Henry’s Fun Run, Horrid Henry Takes the Biscuit, and Horrid Henry and the Lost Dog.

“We’re delighted to be bringing these original Horrid Henry stories to life in exciting new publishing formats,” said  Novel Entertainment creative director and co-founder Lucinda Whiteley. “With research showing audiobooks can positively impact reading skills and children’s mental wellbeing, we’re looking forward to giving fans the chance to enjoy the hilarious storylines they know and love from the TV series, whether on car journeys, with friends or at bedtime.”

These new publishing products are the latest incarnations of Novel’s four-time BAFTA-nominated Horrid Henry, which is one of the biggest children’s animated shows ever in the UK. The fifth season is currently on air in the UK and the brand has expanded to include film, stage, radio and online extensions, as well as being at the heart of a successful licensing and merchandising programme.

A total of 250 episodes are now available with recent sales including MBC (Middle East), Alati International (Russia), and Atlantic Digital Networks (Canada). Renewals include Turner Broadcasting System (Asia Pacific), Mediacorp (Singapore), POP TV (Slovenia), E-Vision (Middle East), Asiana (Korea) and Netflix (France, US, Canada, Russia, Australia and New Zealand).

Other leading broadcasters on board include ABC Australia, RTE Eire, Mediacorp Singapore, Gulli France, NRK Norway, Hulu US, SVT Sweden, YLE Finland, RTP Portugal, TVP1 in Poland, and Al Jazeerah Middle East.

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Blizzard and Nodwin partners to bring digital distribution in India

NODWIN Gaming and video game developer and publisher Blizzard Entertainment, a division of Activision Blizzard, announced their partnership to bring digital distribution for Blizzard to the Indian gaming audience.

The partnership with NODWIN Gaming will enable topping up your Blizzard Balance and then use it on available Blizzard Shop products, via purchases of digital balance cards offered in Indian Rupees that are GST compliant. The distribution of the services will take place through ecommerce platforms including Amazon, Digistore, Flipkart and Novaplay.

NODWIN Gaming’s co-founder and managing director Akshat Rathee, said “NODWIN was founded by two guys and their immense love for StarCraft, the iconic Blizzard game. We believe in the phenomenal lore of the Blizzard universe and that gamers should always have easy access to all Blizzard products in India. NODWIN has always stood for making gaming more accessible and this is hopefully the first of many steps to bring Blizzard closer to the Indian gaming community”

The Blizzard Balance will be offered in set denominations of Rs. 360, Rs. 720, Rs. 1800, Rs. 3600 and Rs. 7200, which will translate to Rs. 425, Rs. 850, Rs. 2124, Rs. 4248 and Rs. 8496 respectively on application of 18per cent GST. The Blizzard Balance will allow the users to make purchases or send digital games and in-game items through the Battle (dot) net Desktop app and the Blizzard Shop website for all Activision Blizzard digital products. This would include World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises, and the multi-franchise Heroes of the Storm on top of partner titles on Battle (dot) net such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and other products including BattleTag change, BlizzCon Virtual Tickets and much more.

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Arsenal Player Mesut Ozil and Kolasinac streams ‘Fortnite’ during Coronavirus quarantine

Arsenal duo Mesut Ozil and Sead Kolasinac along with PSG star Draxler have taken to streaming Fortnite given the air of coronavirus threat around Europe’s top Football leagues.

Image result for mesut ozil

Coronavirus has caused shockwaves of fear into the hearts of millions across the planet, prompting authorities to take tough steps in order to call off any form of mass gatherings to prevent further spreading of this pandemic. Post the revelation of several cases in England including newly appointed Gunner’s manager Mikel Arteta, football leagues delayed the games as a precautionary measure.

Artera shared on his twitter account, “Thanks for your words and support.Feeling better already.We’re all facing a huge & unprecedented challenge.Everyone’s health is all that matters right now.Protect each other by following the guidelines & we’ll come through this together.Well done PL for making the right decisions”

Ozil tweeted about playing live with Kolasinac and Draxler on Twitch, as his stream was joined by hordes of fans who missed him on the pitch but got engaged in another sport. The trio had lots of fun in the entirety of the stream, although fans looked askance over their skills in Fortnite.

Watch Highlight: Mesut Ozil plays Fortnite from mesutozil on www.twitch.tv

Ozil is probably continue streaming as the fog of uncertainty clouds the arrival of the Premier League.

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Studio Durga wins big for ‘Karmachakra’ at Independent Shorts Awards, LA

Studio Durga, first Indian anime studio, has very recently won three awards at the Independent Shorts Awards (ISA), based in Los Angeles for their independent anime project, Karmachakra.

Studio Durga submitted the Karmachakra pilot (first 20 minutes of the upcoming feature film) in three categories – Best Animation Short, Best Web Series/TV Pilot and Best Original Score. After getting an official selection in all three of them, they won the Platinum (first prize) for the Best Animation Short category, and Honorable mentions for the rest two categories.

 

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@independentshortsawards Thank you, it is truly an honour to receive Platinum for Karmachakra! ♥️ ✨Time to celebrate, Karmachakra fans!✨ #ApnaAnime #indiawantsanime @swastikamukherjee13 @mirchimir13 @parnomittra @animemirchi @animetm_talks @knowsenpai @aslisaiyan @_whixer_ @dragonhindix @vkaao @friedpan_ananya @itstanishaganguli @genshiren @monideep_chan @tikklil @ankit_shrivastav_art @shilpasusankoshy @abeersartwork @shabby_shinobi #karmachakra #firstindiananime #film #award #winner #indiananime#desi #animefan#anime #follow #instanime#likeforlike #trailer#india #indian#create #hype#art#otaku #animeworld#instago #animation #madeinindia #contentcreator #animeillustration#webseries #bengali#picoftheday

A post shared by Studio Durga (@studiodurga) on Mar 11, 2020 at 4:59am PDT

Elated on the win, Studio Durga founder and CEO Rajorshi Basu, who’s also the director of Karmachakra shared with us, “We are truly honoured to have been awarded the Platinum (first prize) for the Best Animation Short and Honorable mentions for the other two categories. It was a real emotional moment for us, this being our first award, and a huge victory for our fans who were happy that ‘Indian anime’ is being recognised more and more. We will continuously submit our work to many festivals across the year, in hope that more people will watch our content and possibly see commercial potential in it.”

The pilot episode of Karmachakra, on Studio Durga’s YouTube page has garnered more than 26,380 views till date and 3.7k likes. Since Karmachakra saw the light of the day, Studio Durga has been basking in applause and appreciation for their commendable work in creating the first independent Indian anime. The Studio Durga team is also looking for opportunities for screening the film and has completed a major chunk of the film.

IMDb qualifier’s Independent Shorts Awards (ISA) is an international film festival, with monthly live screenings and an annual live screening and awards event in Hollywood, CA. Each season, the submitted projects are judged by a random team of invited experts from academia and film industry, against a high standard of merit. The monthly winners are automatically qualified to compete and be screened at ISA annual events. Some of them are invited to be screened at the monthly events.

Karmachakra is expected to be wrapped up by mid 2020.

Unfortunately, veteran Bengali actor, Santu Mukherjee, who lended his voice for Professor Sid in Karmachakra, passed away on 11 March 2020.

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Post Office Studios on how the unique project- ‘The Mind Behind’ was created

Kunal Prabhu

Post Office Studios recently worked on an animated, live-action campaign for Red Bull. The series created, titled The Mind Behind is a wonderful piece of art. Post Office Studios’ sister company Supari Studios, a live-action content studio has been in collaboration with Red Bull Media House since the past three years, and they have been creating some groundbreaking content together. 

Post Office Studios naturally came into the picture when the idea for the series was conceptualised. The creative directors from each team would have design thinking and brainstorming sessions, a lot of back and forth, debates and discussions, which finally gave birth to the visual treatment that we see today in the series. The studio has been nominated in the best brand film series category at the Digiday Video Awards.

The Mind Behind is a three-episode documentary series that was developed by Red Bull Media House in collaboration with Supari Studios. Directed by Niyantha Shekhar, the post production and animation of the series was creatively driven by Post Office Studios CCO Aditya Tawde and lead designer Adarsh Panicker. The series dives deep into the inner mind and workings of India’s finest artists and athletes and is told through a mix of live-action and animation, with each episode having a run-time of eight to 10 minutes. The first season concentrates on three extremely talented individuals- rapper Emiway Bantai, chef Thomas Zacharias from The Bombay Canteen and off-road racer CS Santosh, exploring how they react to extraordinary situations in their respective professions.

The Post Office team used an amalgamation of 2D After Effects and Cel animation to convey these stories. “We had to visually showcase the incredible working of the human mind to accomplish extraordinary possibilities, thus each film has its own art style and unique animation technique specifically crafted and designed after each individual’s personality and profession to fit seamlessly into the zone of the live-action shots,” mentioned Post Office Studios creative director Kunal Prabhu. The animation speaks of their gestures, behaviour and reflects their body language. The team wanted to show what their mind experiences, as the series ties itself together with a common thread of how the human mind works when they’re at the top of their game.

Creating 2D animation has always been challenging to every artist, even before 3D was introduced to the audience. “3D animation is definitely trending now a days (even we have ventured into creating hyper realistic CGI and 3D motion design from more than a year, you can check out our website) but 2D design and animation has its own audience, if done right, it could create something more magical, fluid and realistic in its own way,” added Prabhu. 2D animation adds a human touch to the art form and connects with the audience on a different level hence, Prabhu thinks that cel animation, although a niche in India, is still preferred over 3D animation.

While talking about the impact animation has while discussing any topic, Prabhu elaborated how live action is limited to external influences like the ability of talent, suitability of locations, weather and the laws of physics, whereas animation is only limited by one’s imagination. Animation’s strength lies in its ability to express complicated ideas quickly and easily. “Simply put, live action has become mainstream, while animation gives infinite possibilities to project an idea and never gets boring!” concluded Prabhu.

The Mind Behind series is definitely imagined out of the box and brought out to the audience in the most amazing way possible. With animation giving the live-action a silver lining, this combination can do wonders in the years to come and make brands stand apart in the ever-growing competition.

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Studio of the Week | Anicipate

Name : Anicipate

About : We are a motion and visual design studio based out of Bengaluru. Our approach is always the same, in that it’s never the same. We start by listening, and shape a design driven process, with our clients as partners every step of the way. Each project results in a hand-crafted visual experience.

Location : Bengaluru, Kolkata

Projects : Microsoft Hindi Diwas, NLU Child Sex Abuse PSA, Sanskara School, American Express, JSW Paints, and more.

Anicipate work space

1. What are the current trends you’re seeing in the Indian Animation space?

It’s an exciting time to be the animation industry in India. With the world becoming smaller, and medium of video dominating the marketing communication space, there is a lot of work to be done. However, it’s a mad, mad world out there!

On one hand, there is a steadily rising demand for original Indian content, given how platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, and more are evolving. This is music to the ears of an animation film-maker, who up until now, pretty much relied on advertising for their bread, butter and jam.

On the other hand, with the boom of UI/UX and technology, there is a conscious recognition of how animation plays a role in user experiences. This applies to almost every digital product that’s made today – websites, mobile apps, web-apps, etc. You can see how apps like Uber, Housing.com, and Cred are setting themselves apart with beautiful animation. Hence, motion designers who are tech-savvy, and can whip up quick explainer videos on the side, are in great demand as well. Not to mention people who are comfortable with AR, VR, and so on.

2. What are the challenges in this ecosystem?

I feel that the industry is moving really fast, and it is almost impossible to keep oneself updated in terms of skill set. However, the secret sauce is the storytelling. If you are a good visual storyteller, everything else eventually falls in place. Today people are creating animation in Virtual Reality, as well as paper and pencil. To flourish, one needs to have a strong foundation to understand the common thread between all these skills, and what sets them apart as well.

 Animation education can address this, but it will be gradual. There are baby steps being taken all over the country.As a studio, we have been observing that while the demand for animation is increasing, the timelines and budgets provided for projects are DRASTICALLY decreasing. As a result, there’s either sub-standard work being churned out, or there are frequent burnouts (it happens to me as well). This is due to a combination of many reasons – delayed payments, delayed timelines, unprofessional attitudes, financial and tax-related concerns, and so on. For a person who just wants to sit and draw/make art for a living, that’s a lot of STRESS!

 While we have made my peace with all these things in our own way, we always wonder when will studios like Ordinary Folk, Giant Ant, Oddfellows, flourish in India. Hence, we have immense respect for studios like Ghost Animation, Totem Creative, Plankton, Eunoians, Aadar VFX, and so on, who are making a mark in this mad, mad world that is Indian Animation!

 3. What’s one message you’d like to share with the aspiring enthusiasts?

Stay hungry, stay curious! I cannot emphasize that enough. The minute you stop asking questions, and lose the zeal for learning, that’s it. Take advantage of the small world and reach out to the studios and people you look up to. You will be surprised how many people are willing to help.

Understand the basics – try and get a strong foundation on how and why visual communication works – it will help you deconstruct all the crazy work happening around you, into simple, digestible pieces. Don’t be intimidated by all that.

Finally, be a good person. Animation is a team effort, and while you don’t have to be Mr./Mrs. Popular, or everybody’s best friend, it is essential to be able to communicate clearly, and have mutual respect for your fellow team members. It will take you a long way!

Anicipate team

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Sports events are cancelled amid Coronavirus outbreak, mobile sports games continue to grow?

On account of the recent coronavirus pandemic, half of the world’s population is in a self-imposed house-arrest. Naturally, there has been a surge in the number of gamers who spend voraciously long hours in gaming. Indians are binge-gaming longer than ever before, given a whopping 10 per cent spike in games being played  from 2019 which is an average of four hours and eight minutes. That’s according to the latest State of Online Gaming research report on worldwide consumers’ gaming behaviours and expectations from Limelight Networks.

Who are these gamers?

As schools, colleges and institutes are shut and many offices have granted work from home, binge-gaming has become an even bigger trend among young gamers. Since malls, theatres, clubs, gyms, pools and all socialising hubs are closed down, there are no options left to socialise other than social media platforms and gaming platforms for the youths. The report showed global respondents aged 18 to 25 binge-play for an average of 6 hours and 34 minutes, 11 per cent longer than a year ago. Also, nearly one in ten Indians (9 per cent) say they’ve played for more than 10 hours at a time.

How is the gaming market?

The gaming market recorded exponential growth with a surge of new game creation and gamers. With the preference for smartphone gaming increasing 15 per cent in India from 2019, Mobile phones are the primary gaming device for Indians and global gamers.

This has pushed mobile game creators to create more games. The report also says globally, casual single-player games such as Candy Crush, Angry Birds, and Spider Solitaire, are the most popular, and first-person shooter games including Call of Duty, Destiny 2 and Overwatch, are the second most popular type of video game played, and they increased in popularity by more than six percent in the past year.

IN10 Media vice president corporate strategy and development Mansi Darbar

Giving the picture of Indian gaming scene IN10 Media vice president – corporate strategy and development Mansi Darbar says “The Indian gaming market has seen a sudden boom in the last two years. Especially with international games like PUBG launching in India, there has been a sudden rise in terms of the ARPPU. With the help of affordable data and smartphone prices, downloads have seen year on year growth. The game development business is definitely the one to watch out for in the coming months.”

The world might not be prepared for the outbreak of coronavirus, however including Darbar and many other industry leaders believed that “the gaming industry will be the biggest revenue earning industry in the world, video games market could become a $300 billion industry by 2025, with the growth of mobile gaming and innovative offerings, like cloud gaming, according to a new report from GlobalData.” But since the outbreak has stalled the daily life and businesses, gaming seems to be the only business to see growth and may surpass the prediction early. However, the gaming event and tournament which are stalled now might go digital if the outbreak continues.

Sports gaming to boom

With the curbing of outdoors, the already growing digital sports gaming seems to be on an all-time high. The rapid spread of the coronavirus is causing cancellations and postponements of sporting events around the globe and it also includes NBA, NCS, and others. There are large numbers of audiences who observe sports closely and the sudden closedown and cancellation of this sporting events might mark the shift in the audience’s attention to virtual platforms and arenas.

As an example, one could substantially posit that suspension of IPL until April 15 amid the outbreak of Covid-19 might lead the audience to play more cricket games or fantasy cricket matches to enjoy the sport.

Additionally, 18 Mn-plus users were glued to their smartphone, tablet and PC screens to watch the final of the 2019 Indian Premier League (IPL), according to the official digital broadcasting partner Hotstar. Besides supporters of Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, millions of users were also keeping a keen eye on the match in hopes to win big on any number of fantasy sports platforms that have emerged in India over the past two years.

And with many millions invested into fantasy sports platforms between last year and now, the 2020 IPL would have been one of the biggest events for fantasy sports gaming companies. Since the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted everything, the business around the match may get hampered however the fans and craze for the sport remains unfazed. The popularity of a sport leads to the building of a fan base in a country. “Especially in a country like ours where Cricket is considered as a religion, games created on these lines gain instant connectivity with the gaming audience only to make the game popular.” Not only that these games provide  the user with an opportunity to live their dream of playing for one’s country through virtual reality. Darbar added, “Every player in the gaming industry is trying to catch eyeballs of sports lovers and give them a platform to enjoy sports as per their choice, convenience and comfort.”

When physical matches and events are impossible, sports gaming will remain the only hope for fans and enthusiasts to enjoy the sports.  Since mobile gaming is the most adored platform, it is set to maintain its growth rate even during the pandemic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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