Whoot! Nice News: Stitch Media to develop project for kids - TheChronicleHerald.ca

Stitch Media to develop project for kids
Halifax media firm receives $600,000
By JOANN ALBERSTAT Business Reporter
Thu, Jul 14 - 4:55 AM

A Halifax–based digital media production company can thank its make-believe buddies for a $600,000 windfall.

Stitch Media will receive the funding from the Canada Media Fund’s experimental stream to develop an interactive project called Imaginary Friends.

"We were jumping up and down with excitement," Stitch Media partner Evan Jones said Wednesday. "It’s been a project for a long time in the back of our minds."

The project will be the company’s first aimed at children ages seven to nine. Imaginary Friends will combine digital storytelling and games for kids. Parents will also be able to use a web-supported guide to help teach kids to read and can also personalize the story for a child.

"We’ve seen a huge growth in the electronic book market over the last couple of years," Jones said in an interview. "That is a place where we would like to be. But we’re also interested in having tangible products, too. It might not be all digital delivery. It might also be something where we see whether or not we could print a book."

Green Knights Entertainment Launches Transmedia Company to Transform Broadcast Model

Green Knights Entertainment Launches Transmedia Company to Transform Broadcast Model

Green Knights Entertainment (http://www.greenknightsentertainment.com) announces the launch of a new transmedia company that is transforming the broadcast model into a conversation model surrounding bad online date experiences, products and services for singles. Entrepreneur, producer, director, author, social media innovator and dating advisor, Jennifer Kelton has built a unique business model that monetizes brands on multi-platforms through voting, product placement, video ads, banner ads, user-generated ads, social games, blogs, exclusive post-show follow-up episodes and TV Shows.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) July 14, 2011

Recognizing Internet and Mobile Video are the fastest growing media and advertising channels, CEO and Founder Jennifer Kelton announces the launch of a new transmedia company, Green Knights Entertainment, built to create conversations around bad online dates. With women launching startups at nearly three times the national average in the US, Kelton is a visionary entrepreneur who is gearing up for this business wave. Based on this female startup trend, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts more than half of the new small business jobs created by 2018 will be from women-owned firms.

Based on a track record of building consumer entertainment and fashion brands, Green Knights Entertainment is the next step for Jennifer Kelton’s startups. Through community sharing and cross-platform entertainment content, the big picture goal is to have the healing power of laughter change the way the 96 million singles in the US support each other both online and offline.

Kelton explains the focus of this new entertainment company, “We’re creating total engagement experiences with storytelling.” Green Knights Entertainment’s transmedia family includes established entertainment brands with shows and products that include:
1.    BadOnlineDates.com – a web entertainment property with a 3-year history.
2.    Bad Dates iPhone/iPad app – a virtual bad date wingman app to provide instant support.
3.    Bad Date TV – a 2-year webisode series with “Bad Date Ben” and “Bad Date Betty.”
4.    Dating in Disguise – the new Dating Game meets Let’s Make a Deal in this TV Show.

An early leader in online video content, Kelton created Bad Date TV, featuring bad date characters such as "Bad Date Ben" and "Bad Date Betty." The 2-year old webisode series provides hilarious and inspiring lessons to help instill better etiquette and dating skills among too many singles who seem to have forgotten (or never learned) them. Kelton shares, “People want to be entertained, vent, commiserate and even compete about bad date experiences.”

Trailer is Up! One Day on Earth- filmed in every nation in one day by One Day on Earth — Kickstarter

About this project

OVERVIEW

On October 10th, 2010 (10/10/10), thousands of inspired individuals, representing every nation of the world, filmed their perspective and contributed their voice to a collaborative global film project. We amassed over 3,000 hours of footage on the day. Many filmed topics of beauty and culture, while others exposed us to challenges, both global and personal. Founded in 2008, ONE DAY ON EARTH is an online community, a video time capsule, and a media creation platform. It explores our planet’s identity and challenges in an attempt to answer the question: Who are we?

Next Gen. Science Class: Project Shiphunt Young Explorers Discover Two Lake Huron Shipwrecks and Document the Journey In 3D | Virtual-Strategy Magazine

ALPENA, Mich., July 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony and Intel's Project Shiphunt team of young explorers, scientists and historians has returned to shore with news of its underwater discovery: shipwrecks of the schooner M.F. Merrick and the steel freighter Etruria, in deep water off of Presque Isle in Lake Huron. The project was completed with "much thanks to pings, processing and 3D," according to one of the world's leading marine archaeologists. Current Media, the Peabody-and Emmy Award-winning independent television and online network founded in 2005, will air their adventure as the hour-long special "Project Shiphunt" on August 30th at 10 p.m. ET.

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110713/SF34892)

Freaky Summer Goodness! Free for All: The MMO freak show... step right up! (Socks Inc too!) | Massively

Excerpt from Original Post by Beau Hindman on Jul 13th 2011 12:00PM


Puppet Guardian

OK, I want to say right now that I am in no way endorsing the use of illegal drugs or alcohol when I say that being super wasted would probably help you enjoy Puppet Guardian. Basically you make your character and interact with the world by rolling dice. So, to move you roll some dice and your character moves ahead on the map. You collect items and fight monsters, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what to do with those items. You can craft them into other items, but even the process scared me a little.

What I love about Puppet Guardian is the art style. It's flat but not cold, cartoony but not overly silly. Creating a game that looks like Puppet Guardian takes some guts. As the designer of such a world, you have to know that many gamers will look at it and scratch their head. Heck, I've played the game for a few hours and it's hard for me to describe. It fits perfectly into this list.

Excellent Post: Kieran Fitzgerald: Queries and Hopes for the Future of Storytelling

Excerpt:

"...Hollywood storytellers like Guillermo del Toro, director of Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth, are equally committed to bringing us thrills once reserved for the crew of the Starship Enterprise. Del Toro describes his creative workshop in Los Angeles, Miranda as "an imaginarium where we are free to explore the practical possibilities of transmedia without compartmentalizing the artistic process." No doubt the pool of international talent at Miranda will be putting forth novel, if not extraordinary, works in the coming years. For digital age storytellers, the future glimmers and beckons like a modern-day promise of California gold. If you're aiming for big industry storytelling, and if del Toro's instincts are right, you're going to want to learn advertising, filmmaking, writing, composing, animation, television, new media, old media, mass media, transmedia, and trans-Siberian media or the wave of well-equipped gold-diggers is going to leave you in the proverbial dust.

The rush, of course, has been brewing for decades. Computer games. Videogames. Roll-playing. Interactive fiction. All the industries once a touch too nerdy to take over are now very much in the process of taking over. In 2005, worldwide videogame industry revenues surpassed worldwide film revenues for the first time and never looked back. Movie box offices worldwide took in $31.8 billion dollars in 2010. Video games made $60 billion, and are projected to hit $90 billion by 2015. This is not to say that 'film is dead' -- on the contrary, box office receipts in the U.S. reached an all time high in 2010. Only that it is old. Old like printed books old. The majority of people worldwide who want to entertain themselves now want immediate, real-time authorship over the form and content of their entertainment. In other words, interactivity gaineth.

I find the word dangerously misleading -- interactive. It suggests, for one, that the way we have encountered stories until now has been passive, and that by taking a physically active role in the story's telling we are getting a higher level of stimulation. Anyone who has read Moby Dick and played Mario Kart knows that this is patently untrue. You may not prefer Moby Dick to Mario Kart, but I'll wager there are a few more areas of your frontal cortex lighting up over Melville's prose than during your laps with Yoshi around Rainbow Road...."

Fleet Commander - U Illinois at Chicago grad student Arthur Nishimoto creates videogame with multitouch interface

From the site:

"Overview

Defeat the enemy fleet while defending your own. Using TacTile, a multi-touch display, play with multiple players to deploy crusiers, destroyers, corvettes, fighters, bombers, and mighty superweapons to win the battle.

Fleet Commander began as my second generation game for TacTile. I wanted to take a real time strategy game and adapt it to a table-top, multi-touch interface. One of my main goals was to create a multi-touch touch interface that would provide the core commands that one would expect to see in a real time strategy game such as deploying units, issuing movement and attack commands, and activating special abilities. Just for fun, the game features a full Star Wars theme complete with iconic ships, sounds, and music - all of which is property of Lucasfilm...."

Heaven. Kids' Author William Joyce Partners with MoonBot: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore iPad App Trailer