Jun
03
Jun
03
NTT DOCOMO to add Rovio Entertainement’s ‘Angry Birds’ games and animated series to its Sugotoku-Contents lineup
Posted in: AnimationNTT DOCOMO, will add the world renowned ‘Angry Birds’ games and animated series offered by Rovio Entertainment, to its lineup in Sugotoku-Contents. The content will be available from 3 June, 2014.
Sugotoku-Contents is a content package with over 120 popular contents for a fixed monthly fee of 380 yen.
DOCOMO will include three popular games – Angry Birds, Bad Piggies and Angry Birds Space, from Rovio’s famous ‘Angry Birds’ game series with more than two billion downloads worldwide. Angry Birds will be added as the first title on 3 June, and the other two titles will be available after this fall.
In Sugotoku version of Angry Birds games, subscribers will enjoy exclusive monthly auto-refilled in-game power-up items that are equivalent of 700 yen in the first month and 600 yen in the following months.
In additional to games, all the 52 episodes of the popular animated series Angry Birds Toons Season 1 will be available to Sugotoku-Contents subscribers without any additional charges.
The two companies will consider combining their assets to create greater value for customers by providing Rovio’s games, animated series and other fields such as character merchandise and educational content through DOCOMO’s mobile services.
Jun
03
Lawless Entertainment has been appointed as the representative for the animated musical series Tchaboom!, aimed at children between 2 to 4 years old.
Lawless becomes the representative for animation co-production finance and distribution for all media, licensing and merchandising worldwide. The property, from the creators of Nutri Ventures, is about a class of young children, each of whom has a specific weakness. In each episode, the children use the magical book of Tchaboom! to learn how the world would be if everyone had their same weakness.
In addition to the 13×11-minute series, Tchaboom! will have games, e-books, music, a YouTube channel among other things. Lawless also produce an extensive range of licensed products including toys, games, arts and crafts, apparel, costumes, home wares, stationery, novelty items and others.
Jun
03
After going onto become the highest grossing feature film of all time globally, James Cameron’s Avatar will soon be seeing itself on a different platform now.
James Cameron is currently contemplating developing an Avatar inspired live production with Cirque du Soleil.
Cirque du Soleil president and CEO Daniel Lamarre announced the details of the show, which will debut in late 2015, on Thursday in Montreal during the international business C2MTL– Commerce + Creativity Conference.
Twentieth Century Fox, the financier and distributor of the magnum opus and its planned sequels, will act as a partner on the live show, as will Jon Landau’s Lightstorm Entertainment.
“Avatar remains a phenomenon that continues to inspire people around the globe, and combining it with the live event ingenuity of Cirque de Soleil is a perfect synthesis of imagination and talent,” said 20th Century Fox chief Jim Gianopulos revealed in a statement.
The live show is expected to debut before the first of three announced sequels is released. Cameron is currently in pre-production on the follow-up.
“Over the years, I have discovered the extraordinary talents and imaginations of both the artists and the creative forces behind Cirque du Soleil,” said James Cameron in a statement. “I know we share the common goal of bringing audiences to another level of entertainment experiences. I look forward to doing just that on this project.”
The 2009 film grossed $2.7 billion worldwide, and still stands as the highest grossing film of all time, followed by Cameron’s Titanic.
“Our relationship with Jim Cameron began with my visit at his Avatar cutting room,” Lamarre said in a statement. “I am thrilled that almost 5 years later, Cirque du Soleil will be able to explore the very inspirational Avatar realm for the live stage. This will mark our second creative project with Jim and I believe it will be as stimulating for both our creative forces.”
Jun
03
What started out as a video which everyone was talking about, went onto become a global chartbuster, to the most talked about video online. We are talking about none other than South Korean pop star PSY’s insuppressible Gangnam Style.
PSY’s hit has surprisingly become the first YouTube video to exceed 2 billion views (which is something to seriously think about), crossing the mark around just before midnight Friday.
The viral star now holds the record for most overall views along with the most views for a day with 38 million for his Gangnam Style follow up Gentleman.
No other video has come close to Gangnam on the video sharing giant’s list of top videos. Justin Bieber’s Baby is the only other video at billion plus views at 1.04 billion. Cute kid video Charlie bit my finger – again! is a remote third with just 711 million views. PSY has three videos in the top 15 on the site.
Even YouTube congratulated PSY for the honour in a message posted on its Google+ account short before noon Saturday, PHL time.
“The most-viewed video on YouTube just hit another jaw-dropping milestone. Congrats on your 2 billionth view, PSY!” YouTube said.
As of Monday 4:00 pm, the video that was published on July 2012 had 2,003,512,530 views. To celebrate the achievement, animated icons of a dancing PSY were situated on the area of the page that shows the number of views.
Clicking the icons trigger an animation on top of the page. The animation portrays some people dancing to “Gangnam Style” to celebrate the two billion mark.
Jun
03
Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), the technology subsidiary of Prime Focus Limited, one of the global leaders in media and entertainment industry services, today announced that the Indian Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) has contracted it to offer play-out monitoring service to power one of the world’s largest audience measurement programs.
PFT’s globally proven CLEAR Media ERP platform bolstered with next generation content identification technology and Digital Services will help automatically generate play-out monitoring reports on a daily basis.
“It is a great honour to be selected by BARC, and we consider it equally a great responsibility towards the industry,” said PFT founder and CEO Ramki Sankaranarayanan
in a statement. “India has one of the largest TV ecosystems in the world and the audience measurement system ought to be highly credible. We look forward to working with BARC to help build India’s very own, trusted rating service.”
Audience measurement data is the de facto currency for media industry, being widely used by all stakeholders for planning, pricing, selling and buying advertising inventory on the medium. PFT will offer a robust play-out monitoring service which will check the actual telecast of each channel, capture the content at every point in time, and help link it back to the rating piece of the audience measurement system.
“With PFT on board we are one step closer to our mission of indigenously building a television audience measurement system that is better than the best in the world,” said 
BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta. “PFT’s world class technology, deep understanding of Indian broadcast and advertising industry and across the board relationships with broadcasters and advertisers as a neutral partner made them the perfect choice for this critical role.”
India has 154 million TV households making it the third largest TV market in the world, next only to China and the US. This will be the first fully digital play-out monitoring service employed directly by the Indian broadcast industry and is scheduled to commence operations in October 2014.
Jun
03
Cartoon Network, one of the leading kids channel from the Turner International stable, has given the go ahead to the production for a fourth and fifth season of global hit animated series, The Amazing World of Gumball further building on the channel’s hugely successful comedy slate. Produced in the UK, the family-centric sitcom now airs on Turner channels in 126 countries and has become a global hit since launch in late 2010.
Cartoon Network EMEA has commissioned 40×22-minute episodes for seasons four and five of the show, which has scooped 24 international awards to date including five BAFTAs. Production will take place at Cartoon Network’s EMEA studio, Great Marlborough Productions, in Shoreditch, London, from this monthwith episodes set to be delivered from 2015.
Turner Broadcasting System EMEA Sr VP & chief content and creative officer kids Patricia Hidalgo in a statement said: “The Amazing World of Gumball is one of the few animated family sitcoms for kids that offers a warm hearted, sweet and surreal, child-like perspective on everyday life in a way that kids and their families can relate to. Gumball’s funny storylines, great characters and unique visual style continues to resonate strongly with audiences around the world. With two seasons having already aired in 126 countries and the third season about to start to roll out globally, we are extremely proud to be commissioning a further two seasons out of our Cartoon Network studios in the UK that will surely add to the success of this great IP.”
Now in its second season, The Amazing World of Gumball cleverly combines live action with 2D and 3D animation to chart the adventures of the energetic and fearless blue cat – Gumball – and his idiosyncratic family, The Wattersons. The series is created by Ben Bocquelet, executive produced by Sarah Fell and directed by Mic Graves.
The show reached more than 17 million viewers across each quarter of 2013 on Cartoon Network in Asia Pacific, and is consistently a top performer on the channel. The popularity ofThe Amazing World of Gumball extends across diverse Asian cultures, and has achieved a Number 1 timeslot ranking in Singapore, Taiwan and Pakistan amongst competing kids channels during the latest quarter.
Ben Bocquelet, series creator of The Amazing World of Gumball, added: “This is great news! I’m very much looking forward to working with our fantastic team for two more seasons of The Amazing World of Gumball. We have big plans for the show and are already preparing new episodes. I would like to thank Cartoon Network for being a company that truly supports their shows and artists and also to apologise in advance to my family for all the jokes that will be made at their expense.”
The Amazing World of Gumball follows the Watterson family – Gumball; stay-at-home dad, Richard; hardworking mum, Nicole; four-year-old genius bunny sister, Anais; and Darwin, a pet goldfish who became part of the family when he sprouted legs – asthey navigate the weird and wonderful town of Elmore.
Season three of The Amazing World of Gumball is set to launch in Southeast Asia Pacific in July 2014.
Jun
03
War Child Canada launched a fictional NGO, Surrogaid.org, in association with Mother’s Day this year, to allow mothers to literally feed, comfort and care for children in war-affected areas. What if you could help mother children in war-affected areas? What if you could virtually reach out and literally provide them the warmth of a mother’s hug? Or rock them to sleep from the safety of your couch? When visitors actually attempt to connect to a live Surrogaid stationed abroad, they’ll be delivered the campaign’s payoff: “You can’t donate motherhood. But you can donate money”. The campaign is online at Surrogaid.org, @surrogaid and facebook.com/surrogaidorg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cazkq9Q7eS0
“We wanted to make it seem plausible that you could donate the act of motherhood online”, says Stephen Jurisic, ECD of john st. advertising. “But of course you can’t. Only real mothers in these war-affected countries can provide their children with that.”
“It’s so easy to get caught up in the ‘Kickstarter craze’ these days,” remarks Adrian Belina, partner & creative director at Jam3. “But as wonderful as all these new technologies are, they can’t solve every problem.”
James Topham of War Child Canada says, “We thought this was a fresh way to remind people just how important mothers are to the healthy development of children – particularly in the context of war. And that the best way to support them is still the easiest – by donating money.”
With Mother’s Day just around the corner, War Child is hoping the campaign will connect with Canadians as motherhood comes top of mind. As Mr. Topham says, “By supporting motherhood you’re helping protect childhood, which is War Child’s primary mission. And one that’s only made possible when people give.”
Credits
The Surrogaid campaign was developed at john st., Toronto, by executive creative director Stephen Jurisic, Angus Tucker, art director Marie Richer, copywriter Jamie Umpherson, producer Cas Binnington, account manager Laura Rodriguez, and strategic planner Laura Robbins.
Filming was shot by director Family Style (Jono Hunter) via OPC with director of photography Brett Van Dyke, executive producers Harland Weiss, Donovan Boden, Liz Dussault, producer Isil Gilderdale, art director Brad Wilson.
Digital production was done at Jam3 by creative director Adrian Belina, executive producer Graham Budd, producer Greg Benedetto, designer Vinicius Araujo, director of creative technology Mikko Haapoja, tech lead Aaron Morris, developers Elliott Kwan and Alvaro Lemus.
Offline editing was by Mark Morton at School Editing with assistant editor Lauren Piche. Colourist was Conor Fisher at Alter Ego. Online effects were produced at Fort York VFX by executive producers Erin Kuttner and Amanda Lariviere, online artists Ernie Mordak and Andrew Rolfe, online assistant Jason Pereira.
Sound was produced at Apollo Studios by producers Tom Hutch and Benedicte Leclere (post audio), producers Yan Dal Santo, Daenen Bramberger (music), composer/engineer Harry Knazan, and composer/sound designer Armen Bazarian.
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