Televisual articles from June 2001

Televisual archives from June 2001

C4 builds bridges to WAP users.(Channel 4)(TV content to mobile phones)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Channel 4 is broadening its reach into new and convergent media by broadcasting its TV content to mobile phones. Digital Bridges, the Dunfermline-based mobile entertainment company, has been commissioned to send out Channel 4 content to WAP...

...and sends emails underwater in lost ship doc.(searching for the HMS Hood warship)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... With cross-platform event programming firmly on the agenda, C4 is embarking on its first shipwreck investigation this month. The search is for HMS Hood, the warship sunk by the Bismark in 1941, that now lies around 10,000 feet deep in the north...

The Mill enters broadcast post.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... London post-house The Mill is forming a vfx division to cater for the broadcast market. Mill ceo Robin Shenfield allows that the idea was partly stimulated by securing a contract with Wall to Wall to create the cg for 6x30minute C4 series...

Free@last to make some noise.(PlayUK)(Eminem documentary)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Free@last TV has secured its first three commissions from PlayUK: an hour-long Eminem documentary to air on 8 June, plus two series commissions. Medheads follows a different celeb each episode through 24 hours on Ibiza, and will air from...

TVJobshop.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... In a bid to transform the market, job-hunters can now put a video of themselves on TVJabshop's website. The channel has revamped the site to include streamed programming from its online TV channel: while job ads scroll down the screen,...

The Comedy Unit.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Channel 5s commitment to source 10% of its programming from the regions gets off to a hypnotic start with the delivery of The Naughty Naughty Hypno Show from Scottish indie The Comedy Unit. The 4x40-minute series gets a late-night slot this...

Animation Awards.(Cartoon Network)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Win big in the Cartoon Network Online Animation Awards, launching this month. The entry deadline is 31 August and winners will get [pound]10,000 and a TV screening of their work. Judges hark from traditional and Flash backgrounds -- from the...

iTV shopping services.(Mori)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... A survey from research agency Mori has found that a third of viewers who browse iTV shopping services then go to the high street to buy the products they've viewed via iTV. The survey, commissioned by new media and branding company 4i, also...

CBBC to air new Cinderella with top cast.(British Broadcasting Corporation)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... The BBC teams up with Canadian Catalyst Entertainment for a modem live-action Cinderella to air at Christmas. With the working-title Cinderella and Me, it's based on the Philip Pulman book I Was a Rat, and has quirky takes on the original...

Nexus goes 4 it with promo for BBC radio show.(BBC Radio 4)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... BBC Radio 4 is promoting its new dedicated kids' show Go 4 It with a TV spot from animation house Nexus. The 20-second ad will run across CBBC, BBC1 and BBC2 to highlight the Sunday-night programme. The promo, directed by Nexus's Jim Le...

ANIMATION.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Slinky Pictures' award-winner Chris Shepherd is working on a new short for the Animate! scheme commissioned by Channel 4 and the Arts Council. Voiced by Ian Hart, it follows a man piecing together fragments from his past, and memories of his...

New Game Boy ads cut at MPC.(Nintendo Company)(Leo Burnett Company)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... COMMERCIALS MPC is currently working on three ads for Nintendo and Leo Burnett for the pan-European launch of the new Game Boy Advance, and unveils a new slogan: Gaming 24:7. All three are based on the idea that Game Boy is so good...

TSI.(Cable News Network's business website)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... CNN.com's business website gets e new promo from TSI. Shot by TSI's Malcolm Dalton and CNN's Christina Fotinelli, the spot shows cave-drawings of measuring instruments and technological symbols illuminated by CNN's light. The ad was offlined by...

Blink.(Clark's Shoes)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Funeral, Blink director Mark Denton's new ad for Clark's Shoes, was shot on Super 16, with grading by MPC's Jean Clement making full use of its new telecine suite. Featuring a moumer smiling down at his new shoes, it was shot in South Africa,...

Skaramoosh.(October Films)(Channel 4)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Skaramoosh has made over 20 minutes of animation for a new Channel 4 series Empires of Stone, from October Films. Tracing the history of the Acropolis, the Colosseum and the Great Wall of China, it airs from June 11. Shots include...

Aardman film for WWF in US.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Aardman Animation has produced a short film for an exhibiton by the World Wildlife Fund called Biodiversity 911: Saving Life on Earth. Directed by Aardman's Luis Cook, the film features claymation creatures being treated in a live-action...

XTV gets global perspective for Canton show.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... XTV has been tasked with animating the world by Canton TV for Hell in the pacific, a historical documentary which charts the progress of the Pacific War. The 4x50-minute series airs on Channel 4 from 14 June. XTV is recreating a 1940s...

Sledge lands US rapper's promo.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Sledge has pulled off a coup with US rapper Mystikal's new promo Jump, for Jive Records. Director John Bland got the job after test-footage he'd shot of the star met with Mystikal's approval. Produced by Ashley Pugh, the promo is set in an...

COMMERCIALS.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... With nothing more than a poster to go on, SVC has completed two 20-second ads for the Royal Horticultural Society show. The high-resolution print campaign material allowed SVC Inferno artist Chris Mortimer to animate some elements giving the...

Sky News Active.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Sky News Active will be using a host of interactive features during its election-night special running from 9pm on polling day. The Active Election Special will run behind the news channel. As well as the main broadcast, viewers can follow the...

Playjam.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Interactive TV joins in the political fisticuffs during the election campaign with a new quiz-show on games channel, Playjam. General-knowledge show Punch Me I'm a Politician was revised at the last minute to include deputy prime minister John...

The Farm and Brewer Productions give Milton Keynes an HD makeover with a new spot commissioned by Interfocus.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... The Farm and Brewer Productions give Milton Keynes an HD makeover with a new spot commissioned by Interfocus. The 40- and 60-second versions depict what's on offer in the town. The HD format was used for ease of transfer to cinema showings and...

Who gets to change channels?(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Lack of choice between the main parties has been blamed for lack of interest in the 2001 election. And the theme continues in the media sector, with Labour and Tories dancing cheek-to-cheek for much of their broadcast policy. Ownership...

Channel 4.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... The high priest and priestess of daytime, Richard and Judy, made a shock exit to Channel 4 this month. After several rumoured high-volume bustups with ITV daytime supremo, Maureen Duffy, the morning schedule ratings-bankers jumped ship to the...

Channel 5.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... So, with next year's Baftas now pretty much in the bag, C4 bosses could relax and enjoy the abundant armful they scooped at this month's awards. Ali G and Graham Norton both picked up gongs for 4. Unfortunately, the man who commissioned many of...

BSkyB.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Other suits on the move included exSky 1 boss David Bergg. After months wandering in the hills above Isleworth, cursing the great devil BSkyB - and cackling heartily as he watched the company's recent profit slump, Dave obviously reached...

Geoffrey de Crecy.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Geoffrey de Crecy was signed to Partizan as a result of the promo he made for his brother Etiennne's song, Les Miserables. Entirely his own work, with cgi taking two-and-a-half months, it features a hamburger-joint and a cow intent on staging a...

MTV2.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... MTV2's website has already won Digit a Bafta; the "technical constraints - download time, functionality - affected the visual style and influenced its simplicity," designer Merlin Nation says. To ensure synergy, the site and on-air look were...

Unit 9.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Unit 9's promo for Clinic's The Second Line is the first "real interactive promo on the web," according to the director, Piero Frescobaldi. Inspired by the "sense of claustrophobia in the music," he enables users to direct the fly while the...

Tsunami Films.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Redsnapper's promo Some Kind of Kink was directed by Tsunami Films' Richard Anthony. The first time he'd worked with Warp Records, he used images he'd created in 1997. He was working with a measly [pound]5000 budget, and shot it partly on 16mm...

A spot of sibling rivalry.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... The theme of sibling rivalry was brought to mind by your article on Sledge's recent acquisition of Westwood. As Phil is my brother, this merger was not only driven by brotherly love but by mutual respect between myself and my brother. ...

How to demystify iTV.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Your feature on interactive TV highlights the need for clarity when bandying about the term "interactive." Is it email off the telly, internet access, video-on-demand, a dedicated website - and just how does "broadband" fit into all this? ...

Motion pictures for the new media.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... With a clutch of new media producers occupying the heart of this issue, to top and tail it we present Nick Elliott, self-confessed technophobe and ITV's bastion of mass-market drama (p20); and David Cuff, Flextech's advocate of response-based...

TV frame-by-frame.(Interview)
June 1, 2001... Known for his personal work, the founder of Sherbet casts an animator's eye over the celebrity-obsessed, digitally-and surgically-enhanced world of television while coming to terms with his need for bubblegum TV. As a bit of a voyeur, he is...

Tabloid with a twist.
June 1, 2001... ITV's first policy statement put drama in the driving-seat for the one-ITV to come. Anastasia Kershaw went straight to the Network Centre's drama tsar to find out which route he plans to take Nick Elliott claims to be a luddite. He lives...

Upwardly-mobile Jack.(television show Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story)
June 1, 2001... The giant of all animal creations, Henson's is now stalking a new quarry: compositing its first-ever longform project. With Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story due for its US airing later this year, Anastasia Kershaw discovers how Henson...

New media, old skills.(Statistical Data Included)
June 1, 2001... Televisual's fourth annual survey of new media makers spotlights a buoyant market, with budgets increasing as specialists experiment across platforms, companies from related sectors build up their in-house expertise, and all predict a huge...

C4 in the doc.(Peter Dale, channel 4 executive)(Interview)
June 1, 2001... As Channel 4 fends off complaints that it's becoming bland and mainstream, Jon Creamer asks its head of documentaries Peter Dale how he'll ensure THAT 4 speaks with a distinctive voice Stormclouds have been gathering over Horseferry Road....

TV's election stakes.(elections 2001)
June 1, 2001... Sky, ITN and the BBC are all vying to grab viewers' attention during the campaign, and this time there's more than one race to run, with a news channel each and online services added to the terrestrial dogfight. Jon Creamer asks who'll win on...

What's in a name?
June 1, 2001... As two branding giants start to conceive identities for two new UK broadcast channels, Sam Espensen talks to them (and others) about how and why they win pitches. How do you go about the branding of moving image companies? And is it better to...

The director's cat.(Review)
June 1, 2001... A new primetime animation slot on Channel 4 gets a curious film from Halo Productions. Sam Espensen finds out that there's more than one way to skin a cat, even if it does like stealing human body parts... Sisters aren't known to thank...

Noisy neighbours.
June 1, 2001... The audio world is often misunderstood or, worse still, not understood at all. Its facilities don't deal with pictures, so many find it hard to comprehend what these people are up to. Attempting to unravel the mystery Simon Meek asks "what does...

Pepper to spice up The BFG.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Pepper is cleaning up cult animation The BFG and remastering the flick in 4:3 and 16:9 ready for broadcast and a video release. Financed by Pearson Television, the feature is being digitally remastered on Pepper's Ursa Diamond from a 35mm...

Liberty Group brands ETV Sound.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... The Liberty Group has created a multi-purpose audio division within 4MC UK's Wardour Street HQ in line with its manifesto to create an Entertainment TV division in its empire. Provisionally named ETV Sound, the outfit is the consolidation...

5D.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... 5D is introducing an uncompressed, realtime film and video playback module. Commander provides a way to view full-frame SD, HD and film-resolution data, like daily test composites for sfx, as material is output from the viewing workstation. The...

Planning tools for sfx work.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Cinesite Europe is in the early stages of developing production planning tools that will "close the gulf that exists between production and post-production," according to technology manager Jeremy Hall. The project is part of a...

Arena Digital moves house in a race for space.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Arena Digital is pushing for a September deadline to transfer into new offices. This results from the TV Set Group purchasing an extra 6500sq ft of real estate in Newman Street. The seven-floor building previously the HQ of Pearson's...

Anvil analogue becomes digital.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Anvil Film and Recording has made the leap from tape to hard-disk recording with the installation of three Tascam MX-2424 recorders. Located at Denham Studios, the 24-track HD systems replace nine DA-88 machines to create a digital...

Super Furry DVD as launchpad.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Cardiff multimedia house Coffee Cup is using its work on Super Furry Animals' forthcoming DVD to rebrand as Nobrake. Rob Giles created the symbol-driven interface for the DVD-album, Rings Around the World, where the user navigates around a...

Jaleo.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Jaleo is shipping its fastest editing system to date, Jaleo 3.5. Incorporating a revamped graphics set-up manager, v3.5 is claimed to have a render-speed of five times v3's while operations require a quarter of the disc-space. The system...

Smoke & Mirrors.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Smoke & Mirrors has looked to France to recruit senior Infemo artist Jean-Philippe Leclercq. In the last five years, Leclercq has worked at Paris-based facilities Buf, Duran and Ex-Machina, and has directed a number of corporate ad campaigns...

Laughing Budda.(Laughing Budda Post)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Laughing Budda Post has snatched Picardy's senior Editbox operator, Morten Vinther. His previous work includes promos for Venga Boys (Cheekah Bow Wow and She-La-La-La) and Aqua. Also joining the ranks is Rapido Television's Lesley Lund, who...

Power of suggestion.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Hypnosis is the latest vfx house to hit the streets of Soho, and has hit them running. Simon Meek asks (ex-Film Factory) founders Simon Giles and Alan Church how they will fare going it alone Alan Church and Simon Giles left Film Factory...

KIT SPEC.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... The vfx facility is kitted up to handle both feature films and TV work. A Quantel Domino and film scanner plus a Cine3 recorder is the backbone of the feature operation, while three Shake systems running on NT with 1TB shared memory form its...

Time to get on the fast track.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Fast is reinventing itself in line with its second generation linear editing systems. Assessing the market, general manager Steve Wise explains how its business is migrating from the traditional market of post-houses and towards the broadcaster...

DTV: a direct response.
June 1, 2001... After C4 boss Michael Jackson's recent prediction of the extinction of a raft of digital TV channels, commercial director of Flextech TV David Cuff argues that the species can survive and prosper Not so long ago it was hard to avoid the...