Televisual articles from May 2001

Televisual archives from May 2001

Sledge and Westwood merge.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Promo company Westwood has merged with Sledge, to create what's described as an "integrated marketing communications company." It will now specialise in corporate communications including live events, print and design, film and video as...

NI indies kick off with Channel 4 football docs.(soccer films from Northern Ireland producers)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Channel 4 has commissioned two new football documentaries from Northern Ireland-based indies. Head of nations and regions Stuart Coggrove ordered the programmes for the Football Stories strand as part of C4's commitment to commission 30%...

New kids channel for Crayola.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2001... Competition in the kids TV market hots up as Crown Interactive launches its new channel, Crayola Kids Club. The channel is set to go out within six months in the UK and overseas. It will play on the Crayola crayon brand (part of the Crown...

TV gets added-value from Static.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... In a radical shift from games programming, Static, owner of Interactive channel Playjam, plans to move into entertainment, according to Static creative Mark Rock, who is talking to broadcasters about enhancing conventional programming across...

NTL.(digital content fund)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... This year's shortlist for NTL's digital content fund - worth [pound]5m annually over seven years - is set to include souped-up interactive versions of Ideal World's Driven for C4 (right) as well as BBC programmes Castaway 2001 from Lion TV and...

Universal Studios.(short films)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2001... Universal Studios launches a new short film genre this month - Millimetraggi, a movie in 100 seconds - in a bid to nurture film talent. On 3 May, three film journalists will get 24 hours, a DigiBeta crew, [pound]1000 budget and an edit...

The Disney Channel.(more live programming)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2001... The Disney Channel increases its live studio output this month with the launch of Studio Disney. The show runs for four hours daily from 3pm, and includes five now series including Recess and Junior Journalist, as well as new shorts from UK and...

Bermuda Shorts creates US anti-drugs spot.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Bermuda Shorts is just saying no with a new spot in the What's Your Anti-Drug? campaign for The Partnership for a Drug Free America. Commissioned by US agency MNH, the spot was directed by Bermuda Shorts' Christoph Simon. The artwork...

Cool Beans launches online animation site.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Digital animation studio Cool Beans Productions is to launch Cool Beans World, an online, subscription-based digital-comic service, at the end of this month. Eleven animated comic books, interactive evolving storylines and fully...

Shynola's dreams of Radiohead.(animates music video)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Pyramid Song, the first release from the new Radiohead album Amnesiac, is to have a promo animated by Shynola. The video is based on one of lead singer Thom Yorke's dreams. Action begins on a platform in the middle of the sea; as the...

Warner Vision.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Following Madonna's DVD single What it Feels like For a Girl, Warner Vision ventures again into music DVDs with a three-disc box-set for REM: Parallel, The Film is On and Tour Film. Designed and authored at The Pavement, it will be out on 14...

RDF Television.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Hotter Sex, an iTVenhanced documentaty from RDF Television, proved too much for the nine couples taking part, who all broke up while filming and had to be replaced. The eight-part series airs on Skyl in July, with an interactive section on...

Unity Pictures.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Design company Unity Pictures goes to Cannes this month with its title sequence for Jack of Diamonds, an action thriller about a diamond thief from MKM/Enterprise Films. The film has a general release set for this autumn; meanwhile work in...

Sherbet puts on camouflage.(Sherbet director Jonathan Hodgson makes new film titled Camouflage)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Following his 2000 Bafta-winning The Man with the Beautiful Eyes, Sherbet director Jonathan Hodgson is now making a six-minute experimental film, Camouflage. The film reflects Hodgson's own childhood, looking at the results of having a...

Henson's hare wins Sky's digital dog race.(Henson's Creative Workshop creates hare named Harry)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Henson's Creature Workshop has given life to a cheeky hare it calls Harry, star of branding idents for Go Barking Mad, the world's first interactive digital greyhound racing channel. Designed by Henson creative director Jamie Courtier from...

Meridian builds ark for Anglia.(Anglia Television airs The Ark with titles by Meridian Broadcasting)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... The Ark, a new Sunday-morning children's religious programme commissioned by Anglia TV, will go out with titles from the graphics department of fellow ITV franchise, Meridian. Originally designed by Meridian's Alan Scragg, they were...

Wild Dreams'.(Ali McGrath develops new series)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Wild Dreams' Ali McGrath is currently scripting a 5x15-minute drama series Beacons for Channel 4 Schools. Stuart Clarke will direct, and pre-production begins in May. Wild Dreams is also in post with science documentary Future Visions (above),...

Michael Tristram Design.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... The Web of Life, a 13-part Granada Wild series, gets its titles and content graphics from Bristol-based Michael Tristram Design. It looks at 13 ecosystems and their keystone species - ones that have a "disproportionate influence" on those...

Lion TV.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Lion TV confronts a political agenda with a Channel 4 programme, Millions, to be aired pre-election as one of a four-part series. It deals with families in different income brackets, and in one scene uses [pound]1 m of real money. It is...

The struggle for Ofcom.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... The five regulatory bodies due to be subsumed into communications super regulator Ofcom would appear to be getting on like a house on fire. The ITC, Oftel, the Broadcasting Standards Council, the Radio Authority and the...

MONTH IN REVIEW.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Was it Dot? Dan? Steve? Well-Ard? Or had Lorraine Heggessey sneaked down to Albert Square in person to pump Phil Mitchell full of lead in a cynical attempt to boost ratings? Over 20 million viewers tuned in to discover Lisa...

Righter than right.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... With reference to the BBC's letter in April's issue of Televisual pointing out that the programme Eyewitness was a BBC Worldwide co-production, and not made for BBC America. We were amused to notice that in the process of correcting you,...

Bean's alter ego.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... In your feature on Mr Bean last month, you quote a producer as saying the animated Bean is not just Rowan Atkinson's "alter ego, he's like someone he's lived next door to all his life." Surely it's not his alter ego, but his ego. Atkinson...

Ad breaks: less is more.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... I wonder if long-term analysis of ratings will reveal that the new, longer ad breaks on terrestrial commercial channels have handed the BBC another ratings victory on a plate. The longer breaks are not only annoying - and therefore...

Who wants to be a millionaire?(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Since the rise of the independent producer with the advent of Channel 4, broadcasters have been haemorrhaging good folk to the sector: where else would they have come from? The lure of the open road has succeeded in prising many a senior...

Buckeroo Banzai.(television show)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Gary Monaghan, head of the independent Radar and the man responsible for E4's soon-to-becult-classic interactive betting show Banzai, takes a surf through the schedules to single out the weird, the wonderful and the downright awful programmes...

Hamann shines on.
May 1, 2001... After a 20-year stint in the BBC documentaries department, Paul Hamann jumped ship in March to set up on his own. Jon Creamer finds out how he splashed down at Lis Murdoch's brand new indie, Shine There hasn't even been time to fix the...

An antidote to spin.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... What will you be up to on election night? If it's washing your hair, then you could catch Zigzag's alternative take on political life on Channel 5. But if it's voting, then you might find what follows rather disturbing. Mundy Ellis meets the...

TV's premiere league.
May 1, 2001... Some of the most successful British films of recent years have been created by companies who made their reputations producing television programmes. Jon Creamer asks why so many are now chancing their arms in the notoriously risky and...

Filming by numbers.
May 1, 2001... How much longer must we wait before celluloid is made redundant and the digital camera takes over? Simon Meek talks to people behind the scenes and asks the all important question: what's it like? For 120 years film has been the dominant...

C5 goes shopping.(Channel 5 television)
May 1, 2001... Now firmly under the wing of the mighty RTL, Channel 5 fights it out on the ground for that precious audience share. Anastasia Kershaw asks a C5 commissioner about synergies that could up its profile At the bottom of the terrestrial league...

Enter the i-factor.(interactive television)
May 1, 2001... After all the talk of what iTV promises, a handful of digital viewers are finally beginning to taste the proof of the interactive pudding. Anastasia Kershaw investigates the finance, the technology and the programming hitting the screen and...

Gatecrasher in the house.(Rapture TV)
May 1, 2001... A bastion of British dance joins forces with a maverick of British broadcasting to design an interactive "club in your living room." Sam Espensen gets messy at the NEC with the crasher kids Never work with children, animals.., or clubbers....

Commercial breaks.
May 1, 2001... BBC Resources now aims to look slimmer and sexier in the eyes of its clients, including the BBC. Simon Meek talks to the those in charge of Resources, MediaArc and the latest commercial arm, Technology Money is the motive behind any...

Outside broadcast.
May 1, 2001... OB trucks that are fully-functional mini-studios; boxing and racing back at the BBC; and every event possible being filmed, WAPed and streamed. We ask the people in the know where the work is, how they're doing it, how much they charge and how...

Outpost grows in Pinewood.
May 1, 2001... Pinewood-based post-house Outpost Facilities is expanding into neighbouring offices in a bid to develop the company's reach in the marketplace. The facility will use this extra space to build a graphics and multimedia department, library...

My generation, but is it yours?
May 1, 2001... This month Japan will be seen to lead the world as it unveils the first of the new third-generation mobile phones, capable of high-speed internet, data, video and "quality" music services. But this is more than a product launch. After...

Square Pictures.
May 1, 2001... Final Fantasy is the latest in the line of computer games set to hit the big screen. Produced by Square Pictures and scheduled for an August release, the cgi feature film is the product of two years in Hawaii creating a photo-realistic stage....

P3 solves timecode puzzle.
May 1, 2001... P3 Post is to launch a computer program that can identify small timecode breaks on DigiBeta rushes when a job is conformed on a non-linear system. The software package, TCLogger, identifies and logs discontinuities in a timecode by talking...

Independent Post brings Reel Edit Co on board.
May 1, 2001... Independent Post, traditionally branded as "the facility with no kit," has bought Reel Edit Co. Independent's acquisition of the editing outfit sees the group move into new territory, bringing with it eight Avid MCs, an Avid Online and DS...

Tektronix to buy Adherent.
May 1, 2001... Tektronix is to buy its major international competitor in the test and measurement market, Adherent. By absorbing Adherent into its video business unit, the acquisition will strengthen Tektronix's position in the MPEG video test market....

Discreet.
May 1, 2001... Discreet is shipping the latest version of its NT-based non-linear editing system. Edit 6 builds on interoperability with other Discreet products, allowing direct timeline access to combustion and a multi-layered offline/online workflow from...

Tele-Cine.
May 1, 2001... Tele-Cine has secured a contract with EMI to handle all the music publisher's video duplication and delivery for Europe. The deal comes shortly after the installation of the post-house's Omneon video network server and storage system, which has...

Adobe Systems'.
May 1, 2001... After Effects 5.0 is shipping, bringing new features like 3D compositing to the program. Five third-party plug-ins are also available from this month, including version 2 of The Foundry's Tinderbox and Automatic Duck's automatic composition...

Watch my lips, sound matters.
May 1, 2001... The joint director at Lipsync, who has just ventured [pound]1.6m on a new audio department, tells why: for one, digital transmission is now pointing the finger at bad quality sound; for another the viewer is fast becoming educated to digitally...

Home of their own.
May 1, 2001... As it plies for more of the out-of-house ad trade it has already been winning, Saatchi's in-house post facility relaunches on the open market with a spring-clean. Building on 15 years of growth as an in-house facility, next month Saatchi &...

You're never alone.
May 1, 2001... In a multi-platform world, why bid for consumers' attention via just the one? The co-founder of new-media company AMX shows how to follow your targets around from platform to platform Brands can now communicate to consumers via a plethora...

Scottish Tourist Board.
May 1, 2001... The weary are to be wooed north of the border by a campaign combining poster, TV and viral advertising for the Scottish Tourist Board. Five Flash ads by Picasso Pictures to go out via the net are about stressed-out people who come to see the...

BBC MediaArc.
May 1, 2001... Olympic winner Audley Harrison's first professional fight on BBC1 this month gets titles from BBC MediaArc. Setting out to juxtapose the glamorous preparation that goes on in the ring and the boxer's own internalised preparation, they show him...

Aardman counts on Framestore.
May 1, 2001... The littlest hobos in Aardman's new ad for Serta mattresses are some counting sheep. Framestore Inferno op Murray Butler worked on tour spots for Aardman, and completed Hobo in three days. The ad, which airs in the US this month, features...